


Aura

by kindauthor



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Spencer Reid, Case Fic, Consensual Sex, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Lesbian Emily Prentiss, Lesbian Female Character, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Shameless Smut, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut, Spencer is baby but also throw me against a wall you know?, Tension, Vaginal Sex, just like a lil' bit of rough enough to fit canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:28:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25159267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindauthor/pseuds/kindauthor
Summary: An aura, when associated with a classic migraine, is a frequent sensory disturbance to vision, mostly attributed to flashes of light, color across the vision, and tingling in the hands and face.A series of local PDs across the south seek the help of the BAU over interconnected murders that appear to be the work of a new serial killer. Spencer Reid struggles with a blooming relationship forged online.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Character(s), Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 82





	1. | Part One | Cerebrum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading part one of Aura! I'll be updating as quickly as I can as writing fanfic is a side hobby. This is set post-Doyle, JJ is married, Hotch is mildly on the dating scene, Rossi is, as always, hitting on anything with legs. Emily's girlfriend potentially could make an appearance.

> “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness.” John F. Kennedy

_The cerebrum is tasked with many things, not limited to the development of personalities and interpreting vision, sound, and physical touch. It is the largest portion of the human brain._

The splatter of brain matter is grotesque but mildly interesting. He swears as he steps closer to the spray on the wall a picture forms in front of him, chunks sliding down the wall, grey and bloodied. Had it been an inkblot test he would have run through the options as rapidly as they flash into his mind; a knife, a table — no a mountain.

He braces himself against the concrete wall and looks down at his shoes, always mindful of the gentle nature of navigating the crime scenes of his creation. Perhaps in a decade or two, he could find the right one, but for now, he is content with the idea of eliminating the false prophets from the world.

M

Spencer Reid knew the week was bad for a variety of reasons, though an objective opinion he held — and a rash one at that, as it was only Tuesday — he was certain the week was terrible because the expression on JJ’s face as she left Hotch’s office was a mixture of disgust and sadness. He was sure the last time she had held the same expression must have been around the time of the Doyle case.

Morgan spun around in his seat as JJ, and Hotch, exiting his office while right on her heels, walked down to the pit carrying stacks of files.

“We have a case.” Aaron Hotchner rarely looked his age, often he looked decades senior to it, but today the years the job placed on them weighed heavily in the lines. He didn’t have to clarify, the team moved in sync towards the private meeting room.

As the team settled into seats, Garcia made a rare appearance in the doorway, holding a laptop with her face twisted in a variation of the disgust on JJ’s. Spencer wasn’t sure if the case was truly as bad as they were making it out to be. He immediately felt foolish as the images began to populate the room’s projector and white board.

“Oh _god_ , is that _brain_?” Emily turned her head, her expression twisting as she closed her eyes for a moment, collecting herself before taking a second look at the images.

“Come on, it’s too early for that.” Rossi finally arrived, coffee cup in hand from home, looking chipper but mildly disturbed as he took a seat.

Hotch’s eyes stayed firmly on the case file in front of him. “JJ, go ahead.”

Spencer watched as she gathered herself too before turning her attention to the screen and exhaling. “This is Ashley Young, twenty-four, from Greenville, Mississippi. And this,” Garcia changed the photos, adding more on top of them, a little older, a little grainier. “This is Thalia Brown, twenty-three, from Lake Charles, Lousiana.”

Ashley and Thalia couldn’t have been more different, but oddly similar at the same time. Spencer’s eyes were glued to the screen, the images pulled from their driver’s license, eerily reminiscent of the other, but the way their bodies were mangled beyond comprehension in the crime scene photos even had Rossi pushing his coffee back.

Hotch cleared his throat. “Both women were killed miles apart, within three months of each other. It wouldn’t have triggered any notice in the system, if there wasn’t a recent missing woman from Ozark, Alabama.” The image that popped up was so benign it could have been a post that any of them scrolled past on social media they rarely used — save for Garcia’s Twitter habit. The woman couldn’t be over her mid-twenties, smiling with a dog and crouched down on a trail.

“So the south has a serial killer.” Derek glanced over the front of the file as Hotch began to push them across the table to each agent.

“Again.” Emily clarified, dryly, flipping the file open and grimacing again. “What’s with the brains?”

Garcia cleared her throat. “Well, that’s what flagged it in the system. Each murder was slightly icky in it’s own way, but it was enough that the two local PDs noticed they were seeing similarities. Ashley was killed and dumped in a warehouse not far from the Mississippi River, while Thalia’s body was driven specifically to a similar location near the Calcasieu River. PD in Ozark are concerned that whoever is doing this and whoever took our potential third victim — Diana French — could drive as far north as the Coosa River in Alabama or towards Florida.” She pulled the pictures down finally and looked at her screen. “You can keep looking at those in the files.”

Spencer flipped the file in front of him open, scanning the words and reading each briefing on the first two victims. Ashley was on the fast track to becoming a pediatrician and owner of her own practice, meanwhile, Thalia had just finished her certification for beauty school. The potential, Diana, was in vet school. Two medical field positions, but no other threads of similarities, especially considering Ashley was first-generation Filipino-American, Thalia was French Cajun, and Diana’s family had never been out of Alabama. There were no clear ties to each other, but every person sitting around the table knew that one could be found, victims were rarely random.

Hotch spoke up again. “Local PD wants us to begin our investigation at the last location Diana French was seen, just outside of her current school. She attended a brief seminar for extra credit but never returned to her apartment that night. Wheels up in thirty.”

He was out of the meeting in moments, leaving Spencer to slowly gather his messenger bag and head to the door to collect his prepared go-bag shoved in the darkest corner under his desk. Morgan was close on Spencer’s heels, taking one stride to fall into place next to him.

“Hey, pretty boy, did you check out that website Garcia told you about?”

 _That website_ could have meant a thousand things — when she wasn’t on twitter trying to convince Spencer to message girls from a 400 pixel by 400 pixel square icon, she was sending him news articles about the next latest and greatest dating app or website. They were all thinly veiled ploys for the team to feel less terrible about inviting him out to dinner and Spencer leaving alone while every other member had _someone_ on their arm.

Actually, Emily’s new girlfriend was a great conversationalist if she laid off the wine that Rossi tended to keep coming at their dinner parties.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Spencer bent down and grabbed his bag, emerging from under his desk to see Derek leaning against the corner, eyebrow raised in question.

“Reid.”

“This is the sixteenth link and dating website you and Garcia have pushed on me and I don’t appreciate it. I have other things on my mind.” His attempt to sound firm fell flat. He did have other things to do, but even the mention of the third victim — Diana — made recent trips to his mom back in Vegas flare back up in his eidetic memory like he was reliving the moment.

“ _Spencer why don’t you bring anyone back to me.”_

_“Because there is no one to bring.”_

_“Well, it’s time to find someone to bring.”_

_“Why would I do that when I enjoy our time alone so much?”_

_“I won’t be here forever.”_

_“None of us will, statistically we’re all likely to die in another cataclysmic accident in the near future as one hasn’t happened in centuries. It would actually be less likely for the current world’s population to die off slowly from old age than live through another worldwide event like a war, pandemic, or even natural disaster.”_

She hadn’t enjoyed that response much, but it had saved him a few more minutes on the endless conversation loop they could get on. Whether about her friends or the lack of time he could spend with Diana Reid, conversations with his mother always ended in a loop that could only be broken by a nurse or another room visitor.

“Spencer,” Derek’s voice was a little lower, mindful of the other team members gathering their bags to head out. “You know we don’t mean anything by it.”

Shouldering his bag, Spencer turned his gaze on his colleague, but most importantly, his friend, and sighed. “I know, but everyone gets a personal life except me apparently. Maybe I’m not interested in dating. Maybe I want to spend time reading or beating my best chess score, _alone_.”

Derek pushed off the desk and shrugged his shoulders. “Fine, but don’t get pissed off at me when Garcia confronts you about making a profile for this last one.”

Spencer’s mouth popped open slightly as Derek gathered his go-bag and turned towards the elevators. Shooting a smile over his shoulder at Spencer, he shrugged again. “She uses her powers for evil, I just benefit from being ahead of you every once in a blue moon.”

The only thing that crossed Spencer Reid’s mind was that blue moons were actually a fairly common occurrence — Derek Morgan being a step ahead of him wasn’t.

I

The plane ride was spent in equal parts combing over files and being given what little information the Alabama police had on Diana French’s disappearance and Derek glancing at Spencer every time the younger of the pair fiddled with his cell phone.

It only chimed once on the flight, indicating Spencer had a new email through NotePal. It was just as innocuous of a website as it sounded. A glorified penpal website for the digital age — or as Garcia lovingly described it to him — “ _It’s a way to meet other nerds who don’t want to text or talk on the phone like you!_ ”

He didn’t dislike talking on the phone, or even texting — but something about the description on the website’s about page drew him in. Specifically, it was the notion that all he had to do was provide an email address and a few things he was interested in — the system would take care of the rest, spitting him through an algorithm that was likely just running down a compiled list of traits and interests tossed into a list from any other registered user.

It didn’t stop him, however, from feeling a particular sense of joy when he saw that not only had NotePal found him an email partner but that they had emailed him first.

To Morgan and everyone else on the jet, Spencer barely glanced at his screen, but in reality, he read the email three times before finally pressing the power button to darken his screen. He didn’t need to read it multiple times to commit it to memory, but for a moment it felt like he really did. They had even addressed it to his screen name: S.Read. He wasn’t stupid enough to use his real last name, but the pun had made him pause and smile when Garcia suggested it for a website ten emails ago.

> Dear S.Read,
> 
> The algorithm apparently chose you for me. I don’t know exactly what it was based on, and hopefully, you got the same mildly cryptic email I did about being paired, otherwise this email will be entirely out of pocket to receive. Did your’s mention our shared interests? All I wrote down when I signed up for this three weeks ago in a caffeine haze was that I enjoyed reading. I do, actually, have more hobbies than that. That isn’t even my main hobby really. It’s more a part of my job.
> 
> How would you introduce yourself to a new person out of the blue? I default to name, job, education, things that not everyone has access to. I can tell you about the book I’m currently reading, it’s research for work and is by an author I just saw do a talk last month. I have a cat, I travel once in a blue moon for work, but mostly I just stay in.
> 
> I could just delete that whole rambling beginning, but honestly, I’m just hoping there is actually another human who will receive this email. So, hi — S.Read, it’s nice to virtually meet you. I’m Right_R. I’m not sure how much personal information I should really share through this website, but in case you are an actual human, I look forward to hearing from you soon. And if you have any book recommendations for me.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Right_R

Even if it wasn’t a physical letter, personalized with handwriting that had swooping loops on the ‘y’s or slanted lines through the ’t’s, he could still profile it. And the words that floated by in his head on repeat told him so much. He was almost certain Right_R was female, maybe the same age as him, or slightly younger; uncertain, but kind, aware of her status but very cautious about other’s feelings.

He lingered on her name, writer. It had to mean that, just as his was a play on Reid. Suddenly, the website felt entirely too impersonal. He was used to the crutches of working with Garcia or being pushed towards someone at a bar the team went to after a particularly long or difficult case. Every single one of his colleagues had specific ways they picked up partners, Morgan was aggressive but charming, Emily was coy and flirtatious, Garcia was non-threatening — except when it came to Derek Morgan, of course — and Hotch and Rossi were two sides of the same coin, attracting a particular crowd of over 40s widows who apparently wanted men married to their work.

But Spencer Reid, whether it was a by-product of his fast track through higher education and hobbies the same as grandfathers at a local park, knew he was absolutely terrible at approaching anyone if he didn’t have a purpose, especially if he couldn’t read the cues and indicators of his words directly from them. Maybe this website was the worst one he could have joined.

He wrote and rewrote a response in his head in between listening to JJ debrief the team on where they would head after landing. And then he continued to write it again and again as they drove to the local department and met the detective at the head of the Diana French disappearance. As work began to seep into the forefront of his brain, the email didn’t slip his mind — but faded into the background.

Morgan and Prentiss went to the abduction sight to take note of the area, a general parking lot in front of a nondescript building on the local college campus. Diana was seen on footage that night walking into the building and then walking out, according to Garcia who brought up all the footage from around the time of Diana’s disappearance. The only other cars in the parking lot filtered in and out from other attendees — the campus bus showed up briefly in the bottom of the screen as a group of students got on, but no one ever got off. Diana only appeared to walk outside once to take a phone call, then quickly returned to the seminar.

Which begged the question to all of them, where were the other cameras? How did she leave the building without being seen?

Nothing was happening as the afternoon turned into dusk, and Hotch finally took a deep breath and dismissed the team to their local accommodations. Spencer rode with Emily and JJ to the local hotel while Morgan stuck back on a call with Garcia pulling up the last few cameras they were skimming around campus to see if any one of them caught a glimpse of Diana after seven that night.

It was nearly the moment Spencer shut his door that he pulled his messenger bag off his shoulder and dug through it for his personal laptop. All day spent waiting to reply, but yet he stared at the screen unsure how to write. He didn’t settle — he never settled on things to say, he was intelligent, smart, well-worded, and precise — but he was terrified he would come off pretentious suddenly.

> Dear Right_R,
> 
> I guess I should thank the algorithm. The only email they bothered to send me was the link to send you an email, with a line about your singular interest. At least you did the hard part for us both and began the conversation. This is the sixteenth website my friends asked me to sign up with, they’re a little desperate to see me have friends outside of my work.
> 
> Is your username a play on words? Are you a writer? If so, I’d love to know what you’ve written. I have shelves upon shelves at my house filled with pages I’ve read over and over again, maybe your work is among them. I don’t have any pets, I travel too much for that to end well, but I do enjoy the rare moments I get to spend home.
> 
> If you’ll let me know what topic you’re researching, I would be happy to recommend you as many books as I know on the subject, even some I don’t.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> S.Read

He struggled for a moment before hitting send. It was just an email, and it was only a virtual penpal, someone he could very well never meet or learn a name, see a face, or hear a voice. There was the hopeless romantic that tugged at his chest, however, fairytales and stories that his mother used to read him. Knights, princesses, kings, and castles — but mostly the idea that no matter how short a courtship, love could bloom eternal from one moment.

He took a long shower and let himself fall into a creaking hotel bed, thinking of Diana French instead.

N

Every member of the team desperately wished they weren’t walking towards an eerily similar crime scene three days later. It wasn’t Diana French who had her brains smeared across the concrete, however, it was a Jane Doe, with ripped lingerie and a terrified look permanently in her eyes. Even Hotch had to step away and collect himself, flashes of Haley in his mind, the terror he felt in her final moments compounding as he stared at what must have been the most torturous seconds for the woman on the warehouse floor in front of them.

There was a flash of light from the crime scene photographer as she bent down to get a couple of the evidence tags surrounding the victim. Emily stepped up behind her and bent down, sliding her hand into a glove before picking up a ring laying on the concrete floor.

“It’s cheap, but it has an engraving inside. It may be a way to find out who it belonged to, whether the victim or our unsub.” She dropped it into a bag a tech held out and then looked up at the team from her crouch. “It’s small, I would guess victim, but it’s a start.”

“Is this even our same unsub, or just a very similar crime scene?” Rossi walked around the body, careful to look at the evidence and scene as a whole. “This doesn’t follow the pattern that was already being set in the first place. The entire reason we were brought out here was because they took a girl, kept her, then killed her and dumped her in a warehouse. We don’t know this girl — this isn’t Diana French.”

Morgan looked up at the ceiling and then around the warehouse. “We aren’t next to a source of water either.”

Spencer wetted his lips as he stepped away from the team, surveying the concrete floors and the scattered rusted parts. This entire place used to be attached to a factory and machinery shop according to the local police. It wasn’t in use currently because the owners had it on the market. There were so many parts and pieces scattered around the unsub could have used to bludgeon their Jane Doe, but instead, it was clear whatever they _had_ used, they had taken with them. The way her head cracked was so similar to the way Ashley and Thalia looked in their crime scene photos, Spencer felt like it was only right to assume they were dealing with the same unsub.

But a break in the pattern so soon felt wrong.

That left one conclusion to come to, something had triggered the unsub to break from pattern briefly. There was an underlying _urge_ here, something that made their killer murder because it was deemed necessary.

One of the windows high on the left side of the building was broken, light filtering through directly into Spencer’s eyes, enough to make him squint and step away from the beam. It had taken some convincing on his part in a private appointment with a neurologist to get approval to begin testing different medications for his sudden onslaught of migraines. He read _a lot_ about them, taking in as much information as humanly possible to learn why he was suddenly suffering from them — no family history and not being female were two of the issues the neurologist found to deny him an original diagnosis. But Spencer couldn’t stand another day of waking up with his skull throbbing, his face feeling like it was being peeled from the bone.

He could feel another one coming, but he inhaled and then turned back towards the team, clearing his throat.

“I think this is the same unsub, Rossi. Look at the way the skull broke, it’s the same blunt force used in the other two cases. And the way her body is angled towards the wall, like perhaps she was forced to stare away from her killer before he completed his act. I think there’s something almost ritualistic about the unsub’s need to kill. Something about this girl specifically made them snap.” Spencer cleared his throat, looking at the girl’s body as two medical examiner’s finally transferred her to a body bag. “And now we know a type for certain, female, in her twenties.”

“That’s nearly as specific as some of our white males in their thirties,” Emily’s dry comment sparked a warning look from Hotch as he exhaled.

“Diana is still out there. Morgan, call Garcia and get the rest of the information on any rental cars, this unsub is traveling fast and she could already be outside of the state with him. JJ, I need your help talking to the family again for any more information we can possibly get out of them. Reid, you and Rossi go with Emily to finish interviews with Diana’s teachers and friends.” Hotch pocketed his cell phone and turned towards the warehouse entrance, leaving the team to split up themselves.

Rossi drove. Emily sat in the passenger seat badgering him about their next Italian dinner to be hosted at his house, giving Spencer the opportunity to pull out his personal cell in the back and check his emails. As expected, there was a new one from Right_R, just like there had been for the last three days.

Sometimes they would email multiple times a day, the conversations were still a little stilted, both of them getting used to the other. Spencer was right, Right_R was female, a writer, and lived on the east coast. That was as far as he had gotten, refusing to take Garcia up on her offer last night to look into the email address associated with her account. It wasn’t her job — and it was a gross misuse of FBI resources.

Even if Spencer really wanted to know who he was telling about his days.

He still didn’t have her name, but he sent an email the night before telling her that she could just call him “S” if she would like. This new email was addressed just as that. She was so _kind_ , it caught Spencer off guard every time. She had started the last two emails asking how his day was, and ended them with a hope that he would be home soon. He had only briefly mentioned that he was out of town for work, being intentionally vague because he wasn’t certain if disclosing he was an agent was right so soon.

She, however, confirmed she was an author, with one book published and another very soon on the way. The third, and one she was in the researching stage on, was too relevant to his expertise. She described it as a fantastical murder mystery, and though he didn’t know her name or what book was already on the shelves of stores, he could tell just from her emails that whatever she wrote Garcia would probably read.

He didn’t like calling her “ _she_ ” but he was trying desperately to take what information she did give him and share back what he could. The word was burned in his mind, half from the brightness of his phone and half from the words impressionist themselves in his memory. _She_ said she was finding the research he gave her helpful, _she_ was thanking him for recommending Rossi’s latest book on serial killers because it gave her a jumping off point and reference in reality.

At the very end, _she_ signed the email “sincerely, R.” And for a moment, Spencer stared at the letter, willing it to manifest the rest of the name. It could be anything, from Rose to Rhonda, Rae to Riley — though the researcher in him was typing before he could think to stop. Popular names from the last decades populating his search, straight to the R options that came up on the list in the 90s, Rachel and Rebecca, plus their spelling variants, and towards the end of the list, Raven.

He switched back to the email, skimming the entirety of it again just as the car slowed in front of the campus. He desperately wanted to write his response now, to send it back to her in hopes he could have another email to read at the end of the day — but he was working. There was someone that he had to help find, and a serial killer threatening the lives of every woman in the south by just walking free. He slid his personal phone back into his bag with a tiny grimace and pushed the car door open.

Garcia called the trio not too far into their interviews to let them know the Jane Doe had not only been identified but that Emily was right — the ring belonged to her. She was a runaway, Hannah Pollock, who got into sex work, as far as Garcia could tell, sometime in the last two years. The ring was the only hold-over from Hannah’s old life, a gift from her mother. It just completed the confusing stage that Spencer was developing of the unsub’s mind. A doctor, a hairdresser, a veterinarian, and a prostitute; not a single one similar past their gender and age.

It was at least a reprieve from questioning professors that barely knew Diana’s face, let alone anything pertaining to helpful information. Spencer’s head was rapidly developing into a worse migraine, but his messenger bag was in the back of their rental, with a capped prescription of rizatriptan that would take at least forty-five minutes to fully dissolve into his system and bring any relief. He considered stepping out, going back to the car and shaking a pill out into his hand, but in another twenty minutes they were done lecturing the freshman-level biology professor on Diana, a student he had never met, nor really recognized from his class of three hundred, and walking back to the rental.

This time Emily wanted to drive, and Spencer elected to sit in the back again, reaching behind him to rustle for the medication. When he turned back around, Rossi tossed a lukewarm water bottle into the back.

“Sorry kid, it’s hot here.”

Spencer popped the pill into his mouth and took a sip to wash it down. “How long have you both known?”

“About ten minutes into the interview with her advisor when you zoned out after he admitted to us he just signed off on her schedule via email.” Emily was the one who answered, navigating the highways back towards the station. “How’s the medicine helping with them?”

“It’s fine.” He didn’t have the energy to elaborate. Even if both Rossi and Emily were practically family, he was reserving all his strength to focus on his phone in his hands. With the brightness all the way down and forcing himself to ignore the nausea of staring at the screen, he began to type out his response to R, his fingers flying across the screen.

He sent the email just before they arrived back at the station, then stumbled his way into the only empty room the police had available for them to work out of. With the lights off, Spencer crashed into one of the hard station chairs and leaned backward, half-heartedly rubbing his temple.

It was like the information finally clicked and just as quickly as he crashed, he shot back up and opened the door.

“Hotch, this unsub is targeting their brains for a reason. Each body had no evidence of sexual assault, and the only thing destroyed in the killing is their skull. Other than bruising to suggest being tied up, each and every victim so far has been free of torture and relatively well cared for — even our first victim, Ashley. She was missing for over three months and there were no signs of malnourishment. This unsub is keeping his victims because he wants something from them, not because he was hesitant to kill. We saw that today with Hannah.”

Hotch stared at him, Morgan’s eyes flickering up from the open case file. The team was silent as Spencer stood in the doorway, surveying them.

“What?”

Rossi shook his head. “They found Diana’s body.”

D

It wasn’t on the national news, JJ made certain of that — but it wasn’t like Rebecca would have known the difference. She was too preoccupied with rinsing her coffee cup from earlier and hoping that whatever Jeopardy rerun on tonight was one she hadn’t seen yet.

She returned to her place in the living room, her desk angled in the corner towards the TV, briefly looking up at it as Wheel of Fortune ended and ads began to play in the spot before her favorite quiz show. It had been her favorite for a while — mostly because it was just a family tradition she grew up used to. In the evenings they always watched the news, the wheel, and jeopardy. Her moving out didn’t change the routine, just the location.

Her heart lurched as her email pinged in a separate tab. For three days she had worried a spot on her lip from reading emails from that stupid website. It was a random link her sister found and sent her, “ _It looks like something you would like_.” A thinly veiled statement that she didn’t get out much and should probably make a friend outside of her agent and the occasional fan she responded to on Instagram. It wasn’t like there were that many of them to begin with, but she appreciated every last one of them.

S.Read’s email was shorter than the one he sent earlier — it was a he, she was absolutely certain of that. He came off like a total genius, and knew so much about so many different things it made her a little giddy to see what he said next. It was good news, he was going back home, his work trip was finished, and he was interested in knowing what other research she was working on.

Rebecca briefly added in the email she sent this afternoon that, even though her agent was encouraging her to work on her third book, she was also toying with another idea that had been in the back of her mind. She always had about five things on her mind at once — there was an author once who described it as having a stove with a pot on every burner, some of them were warming up to a boil, and others were splattering and spitting food everywhere, while there was always one that she kind of had control over.

This idea was one of the ones warming up — rapidly, and she knew if she didn’t at least look into some of the research for the plot it would continue to eat away at her every night.

What caught Rebecca about this email though, was that it was actually signed. Whether by mistake, habit, or intent, there it was at the end of the email. “ _Sincerely, Spencer_ ”

He had a name.

She couldn’t do much with a first name, nor did she really feel inclined to. It was searchable, a google search that would lead to what? She just had a name, not even his job or anything truly identifying — then again at the same time Rebecca was absolutely certain that whoever Spencer was, he was incredible. That was the trouble with even signing up to _this_ website in the first place, no photos, no identifying information, not chance on meeting the person. It was _You’ve Got Mail_ but a thousand times worse.

Her fingers were on the keys before she registered it.

> Dear Spencer,
> 
> I’m glad you get to go home finally. I just picked up the other research books form the library you recommended, and the rest of the books by David Rossi. They’re so useful I may buy my own copies soon, even if the other idea keeps wiggling its way to the forefront.
> 
> Would you read a book from an author but in a totally different genre than they normally write in? Like if Steven King suddenly wrote a romance, or if Stephanie Meyer decided she was only writing picture books? Maybe those are terrible examples, but I guess I’m just worried I’ll write something that no one wants to see.
> 
> Have a safe trip home.
> 
> Rebecca

Eight emails back and forth and she finally knew his name. And now he would know her’s the moment she pressed send.

She had to step away from her computer, even though Alex Trebek was in the background giving the contestants the right answer to the daily double. The noodles she was boiling for dinner were too loud for her to hear the email ping again, and by the time she walked back over to the desk after turning the TV off, she stopped in her tracks to stare at the email reply he had written immediately.

> Dear Rebecca,
> 
> I would read it, if you’d let me. Write it for yourself, but if you have to write it with another person in mind, know that I would pick it up, even if it’s a picture book from Stephenie Meyer or a romance novel from Stephen King. Obviously it’s an idea you have for a reason, and you want to pursue it.
> 
> If you’re comfortable with it, send me your agent’s name. I have a connection to a few authors and can have books sent so you aren’t on the libraries time to research. I’m on a flight home now.
> 
> You have a beautiful name.
> 
> Spencer

He dropped the _sincerely_ entirely, but the last line made her stomach lurch an unquestionable amount. He would read her work, he was encouraging her to go forward with the idea, he wanted to help her with the rest of the resources — _he thought she had a beautiful name_.

She shut the lid of her laptop, staring at the blank TV as she exhaled and squeaked. She didn’t even know him, she didn’t know him and she was entirely already head over heels.

Making herself brush her teeth and get ready for bed, she took her nightly vitamins and topimirate, checking off the app on her phone that she was still migraine free for two weeks. As Rebecca stared at her screen, she reread the email, toying with responding so late in the evening, but doing it anyway.

This one she signed, “You better not be a serial killer.”

> “I’ve found it to be true that sometimes a stranger can give you advice that stays with you, utter truths the closest people in your life have trouble saying.” John Cho


	2. | Part Two | Cerebellum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The BAU realizes they missed something in the case of their new serial killer. Spencer discovers he finds rambling endearing and there is often some truth in it.

> “The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” Oscar Wilde

_Functions of the cerebellum include coordinating fine motor function and controlling emotional responses. It is often referred to as “the little brain.”_

There was a map that was set up in the meeting room, serving as a temporary reference for the past two and a half months with small pins in Greenville, MI; Lake Charles, LA; and two for Ozark, AL. Secretly, every person of the team stopped in front of the map at some point in the week, staring at the pins and wondering if they missed something when they were in the heart of the case.

But that was almost three months ago, and none of them could linger for to long before another case slid across their desks, skittering to a stop with a plea from a different local police force who wasn’t equipped to deal with a killer terrorizing their community. Three months, a handful of cases ranging from a psychopathic face painter, a narcissistic mother in law, and a couple of choice cannibals that really gave Emily the creeps.

It was Spencer’s turn to pause in front of the map. The office was uncharacteristically quiet, maybe attributed to the fact that they had a hard case, a long weekend, and it was barely five in the morning in DC. The double pins in Alabama bothered him every time he walked past, he felt like the other cities needed them to, there was a specific symmetry and set of rules this unsub killed by, and it didn’t make sense to Spencer why there wouldn’t be two deaths in each location.

Which made him think they missed something.

In his chair around the table, his bag dinged. Spencer’s attention quickly shifted from the map to retrieve his phone, unable to keep the small smile from his face as he fished it out and opened the message.

_Good morning._

_Good morning to you, it’s early._

_I didn’t sleep much, but I knew you would be awake._

_I’m beginning to think the algorithm knew more about us than we filled out._

Three dots bounced in the corner of his phone screen, not an unusual sight for the past month. The shift from emails to having Rebecca’s actual number came out of the blue. He thought it was forward enough he shared his name so soon, but when a month passed and he realized he was spending more time with his email open than reading in the evenings he decided he was being ridiculous.

He saved the first text she sent him in his phone, all it said was “It’s Rebecca!” But when he scrolled all the way up to look at it, he felt his chest lurch a little.

Garcia was considerably quiet about knowing what was happening. Spencer knew she couldn’t help herself and knew that the majority of his time spent on his phone was because of Rebecca, but both Garcia and Morgan kept silent. It didn’t mean that he didn’t have to ford questions from the rest of them, however. Rossi, especially, wanted to know why Spencer suddenly stared at his phone more than ever before.

He blamed it on a sudoku app.

Everyone knew he was a bad liar, but he wasn’t ready for a conversation about the girl who he’d never met and who he refused to fall onto Garcia as a crutch to look her up. He had all the information about her possible at his disposal, but it would be a severe breach of trust if he allowed himself to know everything when she didn’t have the same access to him.

He hadn’t even seen her face yet. Though they had spoken on the phone.

Two weeks ago, late one Saturday night, he was just walking up to his apartment when his phone pinged twice in a row. Juggling opening the texts and his front door at the same time, Spencer double-checked he was seeing the right words as he stepped inside.

The prior week he had read and reread the first draft of her book, even if a reread wasn’t technically necessary, he wanted to make sure the notes he sent back to her were not only adequate — but clear he cared. And Spencer did care — especially as she was telling him that her agent thought the entire story needed to be completely rewritten.

He remembered dropping his bag haphazardly enough that it fell off the chair in his kitchen as he fumbled with his phone to tell her that of course she could call.

Spencer honestly wasn’t sure what to do with himself, so he paced until his phone began to vibrate in his hand. Then he stared at her name on the screen until he gathered the courage to answer the call. Holding it up to his ear, he stared at his shelves.

“Hello?” His voice cracked halfway through the word, nerves wrapping around his vocal chords as he cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey.”

She sounded distraught when she answered. “ _Spencer_.” His mind picked apart his name in a thousand ways — a slight southern accent, mid-range tone, lilted at the end of his name, whispered, upset — he would do anything to have her say his name again but never like that.

His analytical side took over. “Let’s go over the plot again, it’s one large puzzle, we just have to rearrange the pieces.”

And for the last two weeks, Rebecca’s sleep schedule had closely mirrored his own, even more so than when they first began emailing. Even if he was up at three in the morning pouring over a current case or consulting project, she was up with him, maybe not physically beside him, but his phone screen was never off — dim when he had a headache, but still ever-present.

Spencer glanced up to the bullpen out of the private meeting room, watching the light in Hotch’s flicker on, signaling the arrival of him, everyone else’s desks and offices still empty.

He only did it because Rebecca’s last message was, “ _Do you have a moment? I want to run this past you._ ”

Spencer was fairly certain he would have answered his phone for her with his gun in the other hand tracking down an unsub. He didn’t respond to her message, instead, he stepped away from the doorway again and over towards the map, his eyes unintentionally scanning the south and wondering for a moment where she was right now. Pressing the call button, he raised his phone to his ear as he moved the photos of the prior victims all in a line.

“Oh, hey.” She picked up almost immediately, laughing a little. “Hold on, I have hot coffee in one hand.” He could hear her shuffle around before sighing and then clearing her throat. “Okay, I was topping off, I didn’t think you would call.”

Spencer pressed his lips together, trying to stop the smile before it cracked through. “I had a moment.”

“Oh, well good.” She laughed nervously, “I was thinking what if I move the center chapters to the beginning and start in the heart of the action if I start with the climax I can incorporate some of Justine’s” — her agent — “notes and maybe redo the ending. That would alleviate some of the plot points she pointed out in her email. I don’t think I ever emailed it to you, but it was a lot about the consistency points towards the end because it seemed a little out of place.” Rebecca took a deep breath. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

He smiled even more, turning away from the images on the board. For as many times anyone on the team joked he was annoying, asked him to get to the point, or stepped away in the middle of one of his rambling information dumps — he would listen to her thousands of times over. “It’s okay, I like that idea. The original plot was good and the shifting you’ve done so far has made for a fantastic second draft.”

On the other end of the line, he could hear her pregnant pause and then, a bubble of more nervous laughter. “Thanks.” Her voice was quieter this time. “What… what do you think about a cliffhanger ending? I know I wrapped it up in the first draft, but I have room for more story here.”

“That would work. Is the cliffhanger an addition to the original plot? You’ve certainly lain the groundwork in edits so far to lead to it.” Her novel wasn’t exactly a follow up to her first published book — he knew vaguely about that one, even though she seemed hesitant to share it fully. Instead, this one was less high fantasy and more modern. And maybe Spencer had looked up her agent after she briefly mentioned who she was signed with and used some of his resources to confirm she was a good person, especially after Rebecca called him distraught.

She was talking again, half using placeholder names and half using names he knew she had decided on ages ago and were in the first draft. He made his way over to the table and sat down, flipping open the case file for the murders behind him, splitting his focus as he scanned the images. He was missing something, especially after Diana’s body appeared so quickly and there wasn’t a single report of another sex worker death in the area.

In fact, he had Garcia double-check his hunch a month ago that they missed bodies in the first two areas because sex workers were often overlooked. Though, to be honestly, Spencer wasn’t sure how someone could overlook such severe mutilation of a body.

“And since I’ve only been halfway working on the other book — especially since the first book you told me about, _Deviance: The Secret Desires of Serial Killers_ kind of gave me nightmares — I thought about incorporating a plot into this one.” Spencer’s focus shifted back to Rebecca the moment he heard the title of Rossi’s book mentioned. “What if there was a fantastical serial killer who was obsessed with power of those they met? Because I feel like that would be a good plot for book two.”

He heard footsteps and his head shot up to stare at the doorway as one of the night janitors headed out for the day. Taking a deep breath, he refocused. “You know, serial killers are often obsessive in one way or another — not particularly resulting from trauma, sometimes it can be that, of course, but it can also be attributed to a trigger in their life that becomes the root of the obsession, and in turn the root of their desire to kill.”

She was quiet on the other side of the line and he wanted to walk up to the top of the building and throw himself off of it. Of course, he still didn’t know how to broach the subject with her about his job. What was he supposed to say? He wasn’t Morgan, Rossi, Hotch, Emily, JJ, or Garcia — he sometimes still felt like the young agent who occasionally held his gun weirdly when he ran because he wasn’t too sure how else he was supposed to run with a deadly weapon.

“Spencer, you know the weirdest facts.” Her tone was light, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “I’ll make a note of that between the pages of terrifying real-life things you recommended I read.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, he slid his fingers over his face and shook his head. “I know.” Glancing up again, he watched Morgan and Emily stumble towards their desks, each holding the same coffee cup from the place down the street. “I have to go.” His voice was quieter, “I’m at work and my coworkers finally got here. Don’t forget to get some sleep.”

“This last cup was decaf.” She yawned, right on cue. “Have a good day at work, brainiac.”

As he hung up the phone, his eyes lingered on the screen. What if there was a serial killer obsessed with power? What if their serial killer was obsessed with the mind — and had to destroy them?

B

JJ received a call about a new body in Augusta, Georgia, dumped right next to the Savannah River. Same body positioning, same destroyed skull and scattered brains along a warehouse wall. This time she was slightly dirtier, not as well taken care of — and this time they were quick to find a second body of a prostitute in a nearby warehouse.

No one wanted to admit that their new friend was moving quickly and that they had completely missed the signs to connect the latest victim to him.

O

The Georgia air was like hands wrapped around everyone’s throats the moment they stepped off the jet. While Hotch led them to the police station handling the case and introduced them to the head detective, Spencer wondered if it was true that the Devil went down to Georgia and just never fucking left because it was so hot.

He only lasted five minutes inside the poorly air conditioned station before he was unbuttoning his shirt cuffs and rolling them up quickly with deft fingers, bending over to peer at the little information the detectives found so far. When he got both sleeves adequately pushed back to his elbows, he leaned back up to see Morgan wiping sweat off the top of his head and one of the other detectives quickly looking away from Spencer. Spencer paused for a second, watching the detective before the other man glanced back, his eyes lingering on Spencer’s arms and then realizing he was caught staring again, looked away.

It took Spencer too long to recognize the expression, but when he did he cleared his throat and tugged on the tie around his neck.

“Garcia’s going to call when we identify our newest Jane Doe.” Morgan stepped over next to Spencer and toyed with the page the Augusta Police had about the first victim from the area. “Why do you think she didn’t show up on our alerts?”

Spencer looked down at the image — Whitney Jacobs staring back at him with a half-smile in her driver’s license photo — much like Ashley, Thalia, Diana — they were all professionals in some aspect, the split between victims growing wider. Half of them graduate level students, or new workforce professionals, the other half sex workers. He wasn’t certain, but he could make a few educated guesses.

“She’s not technically from the area.” Spencer flipped the paper over, reading over the report from the homeless man who found her body. He was going back to the warehouse to squat for the day, get out of the heat and hopefully stay away from any camps that were being targeted by local law enforcement. “If Garcia pulled every woman in the south with a recent degree we would never catch him.”

Morgan leaned back against a desk, crossing his arms. “So what’s specific to them. We have six victims, potentially more we haven’t found if he began with the pattern of murdering a professional then a sex worker? What the hell makes them his targets?” He dropped the file back on the desk, shaking his head as his jaw clenched. “We’re missing something, Reid.”

Spencer picked up the files and then nodded towards the conference room the police had cleared for them. When Morgan followed, Spencer began to talk, digging in his bag for the rest of the case files. “Six victims, four professionals, two sex workers, two professionals in the medical field, and two with career degrees.” Spreading every file on the edge of the table, he stepped back to look at them. “We can rule out the idea he’s only targeting higher education, we can rule out the idea that he’s angry over sex work or women’s bodies — Garcia double checked and none of the prior confirmed victims had any kind of sex work history other than Hannah and our Jane Doe.”

He heard footsteps and glanced behind him to see Emily and Rossi approaching, finally back from checking out the newest warehouse crime scene. Both of them were slick with sweat.

“And we know he’s not trying to cover this up, I mean he’s dumping bodies in the broad daylight, summer heat in the dead south.” Morgan pulled their first victim’s file closer. “No personal effects missing, we found all their purses, driver’s licenses, jewelry — I don’t get it.”

Emily crashed into one of the conference room chairs, fanning herself and cracking open a new bottle of water. After she took a long drink, she looked up at the rest of the team. “And Rossi and I found the money still on our Jane Doe’s body. Every dollar she made the night of her death was still in her bag. He’s not doing it to rob them.”

Spencer rubbed his fingers across his cheek and then his temple, staring at the photos until they all started to blur together.

He swore he felt his heart stop.

Picking up the photos, he slapped them all up on the white board and sketched out the general appearance of their faces. Each had slightly broad foreheads and peaked hairlines, their faces were distinctly circular, with noses that had wider nostrils but a button tip — and their lips all had distinct cupid’s bows.

Fumbling to get his phone out of his pocket, he pressed the button for Garcia and sat his phone on the table, speaker on.

“Well hello there, what can I do for you, my little romantic?” She picked up instantly, her voice light and cheerful.

“Garcia, layer all the victim’s faces in one image and send it to us.” Spencer looked up, catching Rossi as he stared at the photos and then took a step back.

“You got it, layering all the images now.” There was a beat and the sounds of clicking and typing before the laptop Hotch left in the conference room at the dead center of the table loaded an image. “Oh, wow, they all look —“

“Perfect.” Spencer muttered, dropping into a seat as he stared at the image. “They all have perfectly symmetrical faces and an uncanny likeness. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. Mathematically they could never be doppelgängers because there is really only a one in a hundred and thirty-five chance that someone in a billion people could be your perfect symmetrical twin —”

Emily pulled the laptop over to the spot in front of her, breaking Spencer from his statistics, and stared at the image. “So… we have someone traveling across the south and seeing women who trigger the need for him to kill?”

Rossi shook his head. “I think he’s finding them first because he has to eliminate them. We all know he killed Hannah Pollock quicker than the others, and it looked like it was the same case for our most recent Jane Doe. He sees their faces and it sends him into a rage — the planned kidnappings are different. He’s systematically picking them based solely on their features. There is something in this specific set of features that sets him off.”

“And with the rage involved, these women mean something to him. This face means something.” Hotch spoke up from the doorway, JJ just behind him. “Garcia —“

“Yes, sir?” She piped up from the phone call.

“I need you to run every woman below the Mason-Dixon Line past a composite of all of our victims. If she matches the face, compile her into a list, because she could be a potential target.”

Garcia sucked in a breath, “Sir, that could take days.”

“Start now.”

D

The neurologist recommended what Rebecca already knew.

After being on a nightly routine of topiramate for almost one full year, the medicine was slowly failing to keep her chronic tension headaches and migraines away. It started slowly, low-level aching during the day when she sat at the desk too long working on writing or the blog that went with her website — then turned into a day or two a month again where she was totally out of commission, laying in bed sleeping or with the blinds turned and the curtains drawn to block out the sun.

She felt a little nauseous as she walked to her car and got into the driver’s seat, staring at the steering wheel. The neurologist warned her because she didn’t have the best reactions to medicine, detoxing from what she had been on for a year may affect her harder than expected. The neurologist warned her twice before she left to stay hydrated and have a family member check in on her every day at least with a phone call.

Rebecca’s hands were shaking by the time she put her car in reverse and left the parking lot. The drive home was done in a blink of an eye, her mind too consumed with worry and fear of truly how bad the detox would be. It was true — if there was a symptom of a medicine, she tended to have it. Her body didn’t handle any kind of drug well, and the side effects of coming off any of the higher strength migraine medicines were akin to low-level drug detoxes. Some even recommended an in-patient center to properly detox.

Pulling into the garage, she cut the engine and stepped out before closing the door, searching for her keys to unlock the adjoining door. Her mom had hammered into her since being young to properly lock every door in the house when she was and wasn’t there — the by-product of too many episodes of _60 Minutes_.

Once she was inside, Rebecca dropped her bag on the kitchen table and pulled her phone out of her purse. Her conversation with Spencer replayed in her head. She wasn’t stupid, he was intentionally vague about what he did for work if it crossed the conversation, he let it pass without addressing it. Which was fine, it was his information to disclose whenever he felt like — but she had her personal theories on what he did. The wildest she had gotten so far was Batman, but he didn’t seem at all like the Bruce Wayne type, which left law enforcement of some kind.

Fiddling with the screen, she sent a text to her parents that she would be out of commission for the next few days, updating them on how the appointment went and then switched the screen back to her text thread with Spencer. She could text him, but what was she supposed to say?

“ _Oh, by the way, I’m often totally unable to do anything for days at a time because I have chronic migraines that not only destroy me day-of, but cause major fatigue afterwards and the aura I get the day before makes it impossible to function or focus._ ”

She wasn’t sending that.

Making her way over to her desk, she opened the lid and checked the new deadline for the second draft. It was a month out, she had plenty of time to handle that and also spend a week detoxing.

It would be fine.

Shutting down her laptop, Rebecca toyed with what she was going to say to Spencer through her shower and until she was eating dinner. Finally, she both felt it was late enough, and that she had an adequate text drafted in her head. He sent her a message this morning he was going on another trip for work, but that he would have his personal phone on him like always.

She didn’t feel bad sending him a message at nearly seven at night, no one worked that late.

“ _I may be quiet the next few days. My neurologist recommended a medicine change and I never adjust to those well._ ”

Rebecca stared at the message before sucking in a breath and sending it. She was never certain what was sharing too much and what was the right amount of information to share, especially in a new relationship of any kind. She also desperately didn’t want him to think she was ignoring him if she was passed out in an anxious haze from the lack of medication.

The _read_ notice popped up merely a second before the dots appeared to show Spencer was typing.

“ _Are you alright?_ ”

She stared at the message and then sighed. Honesty was the best policy.

“ _I’ve had chronic headaches and migraines since puberty, various medication changes, and now it’s time for another because they just keep coming back. My neurologist just warned me this one may be nasty._ ”

Instead of texting back, her phone lit up to signify Spencer was calling her.

She half-exhaled and half laughed, sliding to answer the call and holding her phone to her ear.

“Do you need someone with you?” The sound of his voice made her eyes flutter shut. “Depending on what it is and how high the dosage is, it could be dangerous.”

“I let my parents know.” She answered quietly, pulling her legs up to her chest in bed. “I’m sure I’ll be okay, but I just didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you. Because that is so far from the case.”

“I would never think that.” His reply was quick, then his tone softened. “I was just thinking about you before I got your first text.”

She smiled, humming. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” The smile could be heard in his voice. “I keep trying to find the right words to tell you more about me. I told you I have doctorates, degrees, my eidetic memory — that one makes it simple to never forget what character you’re talking about.” He laughed lightly and then spurred forward, “but I’ve never told you about my work.”

Rebecca pulled the blankets closer and laughed a little in return. “I figured you would tell me when you were ready. I wasn’t joking when I called you brainiac, though I did consider Tony Stark.”

Spencer chuckled, the sound sending a shiver down her spine. “I’m closer to Captain America — pre-serum.”

Closing her eyes, she leaned back in bed and smiled. “What branch of the government?”

“I’m in the FBI.” He took a moment. “I work for the BAU, we find serial killers. It’s why I’m always on a work trip, right now we’re in Georgia, actually.”

“Closer than ever before,” Rebecca joked quietly. “Spencer, that doesn’t change anything about you. And I appreciate that you’re even comfortable enough with me to tell me what you do. I can’t imagine how difficult that job is, or how much you see on a day to day basis.”

On the other end of the phone, Spencer wondered if Garcia had secretly run a thousand algorithms to pair them together because there was no evidence in the world that kismet existed. However, Rebecca was enough to make him begin to believe in it.

“Please tell me if you need anything.” He finally said the words quietly. “I’ve been through the detox, and I also know how bad the migraines can get.”

Rebecca smiled. “I feel like there are a million things I don’t know about you yet, but I’m excited when I finally do.” Inhaling deeply, she sighed. “I will tell you if there is anything the FBI can do for my migraines, but I highly doubt it. Thank you, though. And…”

The other end of the phone was quiet as Rebecca glanced at the book on her nightstand.

“The BAU as in the same people SSA David Rossi works for?”

“About that —“

Y

The road was one of the only places he found solace in. No matter what noise populated the world or what people chose to use their voices for, the road was quiet. The road was a place where he could be with his own thoughts.

It worked for years of his life, from such a young boy, he knew there was something better out there. When they would move, he would pack up his backpack, stare out of the car window, and know that the world he lived in wasn’t all that he had to look forward to. There was more out there, whether physically, or spiritually. He was certain of it.

Then came the task, once he was older, of finding it — Finding _her_.

It took too many trips in and out of clubs the first time. But then he found _her_. She would have never lowered herself in the way the woman was doing on stage, however. He was convinced of that. She would never spread her legs, she would never dance for money — why would a goddess need money? He knew that she was a false prophet. That was the only answer that made sense.

A small thump came from the back of the SUV, and he shifted the mirror to see another version of her stirring, beginning to struggle against the ropes.

The next exit was just past Columbia, and he took it, there was a river if he doubled back just a little bit. Which it was worth it, in his opinion, to double back. It was only fair to return the false prophets to the Earth as quickly as possible, and the rivers were the best he could do, he’d yet to find any of them near the ocean. He had a theory they came inland to spread their heresies.

Signs pointed him towards the Broad River. Once he found a warehouse quiet enough, he pulled the SUV over and sighed, fishing his gloves from the bag on the passenger seat.

He was truly doing God’s work.

> “Taught from infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison.” Mary Wollstonecraft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos! I wasn't expecting any kind of traction on this story. They're much appreciated! I decided I wanted to add a bit more to the heart of the story, so there will be a few more chapters than I originally planned, but I'd imagine the chapter length will remain the same.


	3. | Part Three | Brain Stem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The degradation of the unsub's mental state leads to an escalation that leaves the entire team rushing against the inevitable.

> “There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's controls.” Aeschylus

_Damage to the brain stem can cause irreparable harm to autonomous functions like regulating heart rate and breathing. It is the connection from the brain to the body._

The neurologist warned her, but Rebecca really wasn’t expecting it to be _this_ bad.

The first night she stepped down the dosage she felt a little weird, it was hard to fall asleep, she tossed and turned more than usual, and it felt like her brain couldn’t turn off. But it was okay, she eventually got to the point where exhaustion won over and she slept for a good seven hours before popping awake the next morning. She was _starving_ , her fridge was pretty bare, so she got dressed and went to the grocery store.

That was the first time the fatigue hit her. It was like a freight train side-swiping her in the bread aisle. She leaned onto her cart and took a deep breath, but nothing quelled the quick wave of nausea and then hot flash that came after. She threw what little left on her list into her cart and then checked out as quickly as humanly possible.

It was like fighting her own body to get back into her car. She didn’t even pull out of the parking lot when she locked the doors, instead electing to laying her head on the steering wheel for a moment. It took over a literal decade to get a doctor to take her seriously.

There were vivid memories of headaches starting just before her first period, it was just small ones, ones that her parents swore were attributed to needing glasses. So she got them — and yeah, it did help to sit closer to the boards in her classrooms, but then they began to get more and more persistent. No matter if her eyes didn’t change, the glasses weren’t fixing the root of the problem, her skull throbbed.

It got so much worse when she was in high school and college. It was an absolute nightmare to do anything for her senior year — but the worst of it was college. No matter how much she tried to stay on top of things, inevitably she would have to pull an all-nighter or wake up extremely early to run to a class. There were events at night for the extracurricular she was in — an honor society — but lack of sleep and hours of exercise with water and food when she had a spare minute to grab a snack never attributed to feeling better.

She could only do so much to keep them at bay, and when a bad enough one hit she was down for the count for an entire day. The honor student and 4.0 in her wanted to have perfect attendance and excel at every class, but towards the end of her senior year in college, things got messy really quickly.

The pain was a lot to manage on top of the stress, and her mental health began to take a nose-dive. Trying to make it to every class fell by the wayside, sinking her grades with it as she spiraled into an exhausted, miserable, painful depression.

Somehow she made it through — by sheer willpower, her parents, her older brother refusing to watch her flunk out weeks before graduation — maybe even by the sheer grace of God. She walked across the stage and the next two years were a blur.

She didn’t do much post-grad, while everyone else was out posting about their graduate programs, their fancy new jobs in big cities, or even their engagement photos and subsequent marriages and kids, Rebecca was sitting in her bed. Then she picked up her things and moved into a small place only thirty minutes from her parent’s place in Greensboro, North Carolina after she got her first check from her novel.

The day she finally switched to a new doctor and he referred her to a neurologist, she cried in her car. She finally felt _heard_ for once, seen for the issue she had been struggling with for years. Yeah he threw the general “have you tried losing some weight” at her, but in the decade of struggling with migraines, she had been up and down on the scale. Besides, that was a whole other problem.

She didn’t expect it to be easy, nothing was, but at least the neurologist she was seeing now wanted to help too. They worked together and through trial and elimination Rebecca tried pills, routines, and even considered botox to help with it.

It was just shitty that now another pill was off the list of options.

Lifting her head from the steering wheel, she fumbled for her sunglasses and slid them on, throwing her regular glasses back into the case and pulling back out onto the road to go home. She could do this, just like she had done everything else in her life. It would only take a few days and surely this would be out of her system.

Dragging herself and the groceries into the house, she practically crawled into the shower and sat on the tile floor, letting the warm water hit her head and back as she sat in the dark. Somewhere outside on the counter, her phone went off, but Rebecca didn’t make any motion to leave the shower until the water ran frigid and she had to.

With the brightness all the way down, she checked her phone as she dropped into bed, the room spinning slightly.

“ _How are you feeling_?”

Spencer.

She pressed her head into her pillow, not caring if her wet hair made a spot that she would have to flip over or throw into the floor to let it dry.

With a half-hearted smile, she sent him a text back.

“ _Like shit. Maybe this will be the worst of it_.”

Rebecca’s eyes barely fluttered shut before her phone buzzed in her hand again. Cracking them open, she watched the dots bounce in the corner under a new message that asked if she was getting enough water.

Laughing, she pulled her pillow closer and smiled at her phone.

“ _I’m going to bed. I promise to drink all the water when I get up._ ”

S

Spencer was worried and the entire team could tell. It wasn’t exactly easy to keep a lid on it. Every second Rebecca wasn’t texting him, his palms felt a little sweaty, memories of _Dilaudid_ dancing in his head until he couldn’t take it and sent her a message checking on her again. His phone was in his hand enough on the plane ride to Columbia, South Carolina, that his excuse of sudoku no longer worked. He didn’t care, however.

“So who is she?” Rossi finally said, looking at Spencer from over his newspaper.

Hotch looked up from the information they had just received from the Columbia police department. Another body, highly likely to be another slaughter by their serial killer. They strayed from naming them — but it was becoming clearer and clearer that this man was obsessed with the destruction of his victims. The escalation from the first victim to now was clear — she was barely recognizable from the crime scene photos JJ had received.

“I was just wondering the same thing.”

Spencer looked up from his phone at the two of them. Emily’s head was slightly up, peering at them from the other side of seats. Morgan had his head in his phone, but was smiling slightly. JJ folded her file shut.

Spencer cleared his throat. “Who? Our victim? According to the pattern she should be a professional —“

Morgan cut him off. “You might as well tell them, kid.”

He felt a little backed into a corner. Rossi raised an eyebrow at Spencer and then looked down at the phone as it buzzed.

Spencer wasn’t going to look immediately, but it was unconscious. His eyes scanned the message — she was awake, a little dizzy but getting some water and something to eat. The relief from the one message was almost as good as hearing her say his name.

“Whoever she is, you’re worried about her.” Hotch stated.

“And that message eased your mind a little, but not enough for you to relax your death grip on your phone.” Rossi finished, laying his paper down on the table.

Spencer turned his phone screen off before Emily could fully get up and walk over. “Don’t profile me.”

“Ooh,” Emily grinned, leaning against the seats and exchanging a look with JJ. “What’s your type, Spencer? How did you meet her? We’ve been back and forth on trips for the past four months. Is she your Will?” She wiggled her eyebrows and it caused JJ to cover her face. “Did you meet her on the job?”

Every team member’s eyes were on Spencer, expecting him to say more, to tell them about her. It just felt like, for one of the rare moments, he didn’t exactly have the words on what to say. He imagined a conversation in his head with his mother a few times, late at night when he was finally in his own bed after getting off the jet, but that was different — Diana Reid would have been happy if Spencer brought anyone to meet her. He knew, obviously, so would the team, but they knew so much more about him than anyone else.

His phone vibrated in his hand again and his eyes flickered down just to read the message on screen, resting again, she ate, drank some water — was a little bit cold, but he remembered the shivering well coming down off Dilaudid, like no matter what he did he would never be warm again.

Sliding his thumb over the edge of his phone, he looked back up, catching Morgan’s eyes, and then the slight creases at the edges of Rossi’s.

“Her name is Rebecca.” Spencer couldn’t look at them as he said the words, nerves, anxiety, and a little bit of coffee bubbling up the back of his throat. “She’s an author, and we’ve been talking for almost four months.”

Hotch was the first to speak, his smile small, but present at the edges of his lips. “I hope we get to meet her soon.”

Spencer hoped he did too.

E

If someone shot Rebecca, she would use her last words to thank them for doing her a favor.

The anxiety alone was making her hands shake, but by mid-day, her entire body was trembling from a combination of symptoms. Coming off the medicine, the best she could think to describe it, was like coming out of a frigid camp lake at 5 am back in middle school. Her entire body felt like someone plugged it into a light socket.

Every time she lifted her head from the couch, her living room spun in rapid and wobbly ovals, not even stable enough to be circular. She accidentally kept it on Animal Planet for five hours, some show called _Pitbulls and Paroles_ playing on repeat in the background as she stared off into space and debated on if vomiting would make her feel better.

It didn’t.

She felt bad texting her parents, her mom especially. But sometime around dinner she showed up anyway and left some soup in the fridge and sat with Rebecca for an hour.

“ _You may need to call the doctor if this gets any worse. You’re not looking well, honey.”_

_“I’ll call if I have to. They warned me it would be bad.”_

_“This is a full detox, are you sure you want to be alone?”_

She sent her mom home — really Rebecca rallied enough to stand and convince her mother she was fine, nothing a little sleep couldn’t fix. She didn’t seem convinced as she left, but it didn’t matter because the moment she did, Rebecca was going back to the bathroom and throwing up a mixture of bile and electric blue gatorade.

Wiping her mouth, she leaned her head on the side of the sink and groaned, fishing her phone out of the pocket of her pajama pants. Spencer landed — he was in Columbia of all places.

A little voice in the back of her mind reminded her that he was there for work, probably something very important, but a larger part wanted to break and call him from the bathroom floor. She didn’t want her parents, or even her older brother who was across the country in Seattle, she wanted Spencer.

Dragging herself up from the tile, Rebecca washed her mouth out, staring at the reflection in the mirror. Maybe she didn’t want him to see her like this, maybe there was some truth to the fact sleep would help, anything had to be better than being awake and miserable. Bypassing the couch, she went into her bedroom and crawled back between the sheets, her cat following and jumping up to curl up beside her.

She didn’t remember falling asleep, and maybe she didn’t really, just dozed, because the feeling of her skin sticky and hot kept waking her up. If her head slipped down on the pillow, her chest started to feel like it was constricting, her shirt hot and warm, too tight on her skin. Her heart kept pounding, fluttering and racing every time she moved in bed, making the nausea worse as panic gripped her. It was a panic attack from hell and felt like it just kept going on for hours and hours even though it couldn’t have been more than short bursts.

When she finally passed back out with her phone clenched in her hand, Rebecca swore if she made it to the other side of this she wasn’t taking another pill stronger than an Advil again.

N

The coroner had Margot James on two separate tables, even though he didn’t realize it until after Spencer pointed it out. Margot’s arm was mistakenly put next to their most recent Jane Doe. The escalation took him out of his element for a moment. The mangled and mutilated bodies of the two women made him wonder if he would always think of this when he was older, ninety years old and haunted by the past of seeing this many bodies over so few years.

It was honestly something Spencer didn’t want to think about.

JJ was sitting at the conference room table inside the Columbia PD’s building when Spencer and Emily got back from the coroner’s office and while Emily went to update Hotch on the victim and get the rest of the team together, Spencer slowed to a stop next to JJ.

“Hey,” she looked up from the pages of information on all the victims’ families, smiling softly. “Why didn’t you tell me about Rebecca?”

Spencer dropped into the seat beside her and laid his hands on the table, flexing his fingers. “You know, when Emily died — when you had to keep that from us, I wasn’t sure I could forgive you.” He kept his eyes on the peeling vinyl on top of the conference table, inhaling deeply. “I spent weeks analyzing every moment of that night, trying to find an outcome that could have ended with her alive, but I never found one because she was alright, all along.” He raised his eyes finally, JJ’s expression twisted. “I was distraught when I thought I missed something, missed something large enough that my friend died, large enough that Strauss forcing you to switch jobs felt like nothing. I’ve been a part of this team for years, but I keep watching people leave. Gideon, you, Emily, Hotch for the weeks after Haley — I’ve never had someone who wasn’t trudging through the job with me. The toll it takes, you know,” His voice cracked and Spencer cleared his throat. “It’s a part of the work.”

JJ opened her mouth, but Spencer shook his head and laid his phone on the table.

“When you joined the team, I thought you were the one for me.” He smiled slightly, trying to choose his words carefully, “I was twenty-six, fresh out of the academy, and there was a pretty blonde coworker. But our friendship has always been one of the best things to come out of the BAU, something I’m so thankful for. I guess I didn’t want you to think I was either trying to hide her, or that I was pulling away from everyone.”

She took a second, her eyes slightly watery before covering one of his hands with her own. “I just want you to be happy, Spence. I didn’t even know you felt so alone. I mean, I always hoped none of us made you feel that way, especially when we all have someone to go home to.”

Spencer looked down at their hands and smiled halfway, glancing back up at her. “I still don’t, not yet. But four months may be my limit on courting. I think I’ve decided there are some things I enjoy keeping chaste and a mystery, and others I’m ready to forgo.”

JJ laughed, pulling her hand away and then looking down at the file. “So, you haven’t met her yet?”

“I know she lives in North Carolina,” Spencer supplied, looking at his phone with a gentle smile. “I feel like I’ve known her for a decade at this point, but no, we’ve never met. I’ve actually never seen her face, just spoken to her.”

A worried expression crossed JJ’s face. “But…”

“JJ, it doesn’t matter what she looks like.” The smile didn’t waver as he looked back up at his friend. “It’s going to be her heart, her mind — the appearance doesn’t matter.”

It wasn’t an exact interruption, but Hotch chose that moment to come into the conference room, Rossi bringing up the rear behind Emily and Morgan. He pulled the door shut as everyone found a spot. Files scattered all over the table and photos pinned to the board at the front told a story, it was filling in the gaps of their antagonist that brought the team, finally, together in one place.

“With this profile, we need to be aware that what goes out to the public will curb, not encourage our unsub’s recent behavior.” Hotch rubbed the edge of his jaw, eyes scanning photos on the screen next to him. “At the rate he’s killed in the past three months, we can safely assume that his mental health has begun to deteriorate rapidly.”

“I think we can safely profile that it’s a male.” Emily muttered, her fingers between two pages of the file in front of her. “I would even go so far as to say he’s late twenties to early thirties. Clearly he has an ability to approach this woman and not alarm them immediately — and he’s normal enough that he can seek out a sex worker and not cause any immediate discomfort.”

Morgan cleared his throat. “When I got into contact with the club owner back in Alabama and Garcia skimmed the camera footage, there were a startling lack of cars around the area the night Hannah left work. With the ground this guy has covered, he has to have a reliable vehicle, but the ability to go unnoticed or maybe even on foot to originally grab his victims.”

Rossi shook his head, taking a sip of his coffee. “I don’t think we’re dealing with someone who would give up that much control. Think about it — this guy has been meticulous. He takes these women, he’s driven to _kill_ these women because of their faces. That doesn’t say to me that he would be willing to get caught on foot in an alleyway somewhere. He has a car, we just haven’t seen it yet, especially transporting these bodies.”

“And he has the murder weapon with him.” Spencer finally spoke. “The consistent wounds on every victim so far has been the destruction of the skull, leading me to believe he’s using some kind of bat, pipe, or other large rounded object. The first two victims also showed slight signs of choking — which is consistent with Margot’s wounds around her neck before he removed her head.” He ran his fingers over the photo from the coroner, then looked up. “To suddenly decide he needed to remove the victims from their bodies in more ways than just destruction of the brain — he must be impacted by each kill more than we realize.”

“How so?” JJ pushed the photos away from in front of her. “He kidnaps and kills women because they all look the same. It sounds like a killer just trying to rid himself of a ghost in his past.”

“Maybe,” Spencer muttered, “but it all feels a little ritualistic, don’t you all think?” The photos in front of him suddenly took on a darker tone, if possible. He stood up from the table and felt the eyes of the team on him as he walked over to the board, staring at the pins in every location of the victims.

His only thought was what specifically made him choose these victims.

“Do we still have photos of the victims’ purses?” He turned suddenly, and Rossi rifled through one of the files before laying it out.

Spencer stepped over, but before he could say anything, Morgan snorted. “They all carried basically the same thing. Pads, wallet, cell phone —“

“— and a medicine bag.” Spencer picked up one of the photos, staring at a small cloth pouch from Thalia Brown’s purse, their very first victim and she had a small bag with a few tums and a bottle of Execedrin for migraines. He felt his blood run cold.

Fumbling for a second, he dialed Garcia on the phone in the center of the conference room table, nausea burning the back of his throat.

“Hello, my dears, what can I do you for?”

“Garcia, what prescriptions did all our victims last fill?”

Hotch pulled the photos closer to him, his eyes narrowing as Garcia’s keyboard clicked in the background.

She hummed and finally spoke. “Well, Thalia didn’t have anything, but she did go to CVS about a week before her death… receipt says she bought Execdrin.” Spencer knew that, he was looking at the damn bottle. “Ashley Young filled a birth control prescription… and oh, bought some Advil. Let’s see… some records of over the counter pain medicine — oh wait, Ashley was almost out of a medicine called… maxalt.”

“He’s finding them because they had migraines.” The feeling in his chest and stomach was worse than any time he was shot, kicked, or thrown around. It was like being thrown up against the wall. Spencer’s entire body felt like he was shutting down. “He’s targeting people with chronic migraines.”

“Reid,” Morgan looked over at him, “Reid, what is it?”

It was irrational, completely fear-based, but he just _knew_.

“Rebecca has migraines. She lives in North Carolina. Our unsub isn’t here anymore, we know he leaves immediately.”

“I’m pulling her address.” Garcia’s fingers were flying across her keyboard before she could get consent from Hotch or anyone else on the team. “Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she just —“

“— She just filled a prescription for a lower dosage of topamirate.”

S

It wasn’t like the movies.

Maybe it used to be that simple, a briefcase full of brand new medicine, a smile, and a nice paycheck at the end of the month — but now it was a lot of gritted teeth and cheaply made pens with the drug’s name on it. Most of the time he left those with the pharmacist and moved on.

The bell above the door rang as he walked into the small local store. These were easier to get into — behind the counter was a matter of distracting the one or two workers long enough he could type in a keyword and have a whole list of whomever he wanted, most of the time with a photo ID to go with it. He’d stopped going to Walgreens in the past month, their corporate reviewal of camera footage probably wasn’t the safest.

He wasn’t going to lie, he was comfortable with most people and places. As much as he saw the road as a child, and still saw it now, he did enjoy the south the most. The people were friendly, the women were pretty, and the nights were warm. There wasn’t much more he could ask for in life.

Except for finding _her_.

“Well, hello there!” The man behind the counter gave him the widest smile. Salt and pepper hair, more salt than pepper at this point, and creases next to his eyes. “I was just thinking of closing early for lunch. You know, we don’t get a lot of folks midday.”

 _He_ smiled back, a little laugh and then raising his briefcase. “Oh, I don’t want to take up too much of your time then if you haven’t had lunch yet! You were just on my list of places to visit.”

The pharmacist watched him with a smile as he opened the case and produced a small bag of branded items. “Are these those new one a day beta blockers? I’ll be, I heard about that trial going through, must have been last year.” The pharmacist picked up one of the pens and chuckled. “I guess they send you with this to help pitch it?”

“They’re hoping the pen makes it a better deal.” He smiled and shuffled the sample packs around. “Listen, I’m going to tell you what I told the neurologist down the road, this stuff works. Totally blocks the receptors and helped my sister with her migraines. It’s just getting these private insurances to cover it and getting it out on the shelves. It should help more people than just the ones who know about it.”

The computer was behind the counter and to the left, with some outdated displays for aspirin and pamphlets about safe sex stacked in front of it, just in reach of customers. Reaching back into his briefcase, he pulled out a bottle of water.

“Sorry, give me a second, it’s just so hot today.”

“Oh, don’t worry son.” The pharmacist waved a hand, “I’ll tell you what’s even better than water during this heat, all you have to do —“

 _He_ intentionally fumbled while unscrewing the lid to the bottle, spilling water all over the displays and the counter. Wide eyed and with a gasp, he stepped back. “Oh damnit, I am so sorry, do you have some paper towels, I can help you with that.”

“Well, _boy_ ,” There it was, the tonal shift in the pharmacist’s words, the disapproval, annoyance. “Don’t touch anything, I have some towels in the back.” The pharmacist turned, his shoes clicking on the old linoleum floor as he hurried to find the paper towels.

It only took a moment to swivel the computer’s monitor and find the recently filled medications. Birth control, blood pressure medication, some insulin in multiple doses — he tried to read as quickly as possible, sorting through the old system until he saw it.

Filled a day ago, topamirate specifically in a smaller dosage. The name next to it didn’t matter — it was the face on her license, the way her lips so perfectly arched at their cupid’s bow, her cheekbones high and jaw sharp even in her round features. She was _her_. She was perfect.

E

She woke up in a pool of her own sweat. Disregarding her phone, Rebecca stumbled out of bed, the room spinning a little more than usual and found her way to the kitchen. Water wasn’t cutting it, even after two glasses she still felt dry as the Sahara and weighed down.

When she opened the fridge, she poked at the Tupperware container with a cup of soup left in it. Most of it had been eaten earlier when she woke up starving after throwing up bile all morning, and now she was quickly realizing she was not only out of Gatorade, but definitely needed something to eat that had more substance than some unsalted crackers, half stale sitting in her kitchen cabinet.

Honestly, as she shoved her feet into some shoes and grabbed her keys, she expected it to be later. But her sleeping schedule was so off from the night before and the past day everything seemed to blend together. Grabbing her phone, Rebecca dropped it into her bag before walking into the garage and getting in her car.

The nearest store was barely ten minutes away, so it took just enough effort for her to feel exhausted as she used every ounce of energy to get herself inside and picked up a basket. It wasn’t a full grocery, halfway between going to a gas station and actually having a decent amount of options. It didn’t really matter though, she made a beeline for the drinks first and picked up a six-pack of Gatorade again. Her dad warned her to get an extra pack when she went to the store two days ago, but did she listen? Of course not.

She also hadn’t expected to throw the majority of it back up all last night and this morning.

Stepping around a guy between the chips and the small soup section, she shot him a polite smile before looking at her options. Campbells in the choice flavors — she picked chicken noodle soup with _star_ noodles because that seemed more fun to throw up than the plain ones.

With everything on her arm, Rebecca made her way back to the front, stepping up to the counter and rubbing her eyes as the bored teenager checked her out. The guy from before stepped up behind her to wait in line and for a split second, she felt a little self-conscious that her hair was piled on top of her head and she was wearing a threadbare cardigan over some leggings in almost one hundred degrees weather. But she was cold.

“Thanks.” She smiled at the cashier before taking her bags and turning back towards the door. Before she could fully get outside, the guy took two steps and was caught up with her.

He pulled open the door for her and chuckled. “Here, let me get that.”

Rebecca smiled up at him, stepping around him to get back outside. “Thank you, sorry I’m a mess.”

“Are you sick?” He stepped out beside her, letting the door fall shut as she started towards her car.

“How could you tell?’ Rebecca laughed dryly, pausing around the edge of the entrance and giving him a half-smile. “I’ll be fine, thank you for grabbing the door for me. I appreciate it.”

He was tall, a little handsome, and had brown hair not too dissimilar to hers.

The last thing she remembered was reaching to unlock her car door.

> “Fairytales were never really meant for children; they were meant as cautionary tales for teenagers on the verge of growing up.” Kate Forsyth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive! Sorry this chapter took so long, but we're officially halfway through Aura! Thank you so much for over 100 hits on my little story, I hope you enjoy this chapter. :)


	4. | Part Four | Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The BAU finally face their unsub.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh... enjoy! :) Slight warning for intense violence, but it's nothing the show hasn't covered. Especially Season 2 Reid and Tobias Hankel.

> “To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.” H. L. Mencken

_Two separate arteries join together to promote blood flow in the brain. Bloodlines are necessary to keep brain cells healthy and prevent serious conditions such as stroke or cell death which leads to the ultimate loss of brain function._

He leaped up the steps in front of Rebecca’s house, the black SUV barely parked before he was throwing open the door and running towards the darkened windows, his stomach already in knots.

_She’s not inside_.

He knew it before he banged on the door, his voice hoarse and cracking. “Rebecca! Rebecca, open the door!” He wasn’t strong enough to break it open, but Morgan was. Derek threw his shoulder against the wood once — twice — and then the lock snapped, the door swinging open to an empty hallway and Rebecca’s cat — Jasper — giving a frantic meow at the end of the hall before darting away.

_She’s not here_.

The anxiety in his body wouldn’t ease up on the reminders. Hotch shouted something about not going in yet, but Spencer was already inside and barking behind him to Derek.

“Shut the door, she’ll kill me if Jasper gets out.”

He drew his gun, unsure but almost certain her cat was the only thing inside the house. She would have appeared by now, a sleepy expression, a shocked look maybe.

_She’s gone_.

The words hit him like a bullet the moment he saw her bedroom, tousled sheets, and Jasper halfway under the bed. He couldn’t stop himself, he took three steps and pressed his hands against the bed, the sheets cool to the touch — she was gone and he hadn’t been able to warn her.

“Spencer? _Spence_.”

In the time it took for the rest of the team to find him, he had sunk to his knees, staring at her bed as he tried to process it. She wasn’t feeling well, there was an empty bottle of Gatorade on her nightstand, the almost empty bottle of pills right next to it — she needed another one tonight or the detox would be even worse if she didn’t continue to step down the dosage level.

Emily had her hand on his shoulder, squeezing it. “Spencer you have to get up.”

“I need Garcia.” He fumbled back to his feet, gun slung back into the holster with one hand while the other fished for his phone. He pushed past Rossi in the doorway and speed-dialed Garcia, his voice breaking. “She’s not here, where is she?”

“I’ve got you.” Garcia sounded more level than she ever had been, her fingers flying off the keyboard in the background. “Her cell phone pinged at her house an hour ago, then at a local Dollar General not too far. Her car doesn’t have GPS, but I can have JJ on the phone with her parents while —“

He handed the phone off to Hotch wordlessly and headed for the door.

“Reid _stop_.” Derek put his hand on Spencer’s chest, halting him from going out the front door and finding the last location she was. There would be something there, even if it was just her car — the unsub had to have left a clue, a hint to why he took her other than her last filled prescription.

Spencer raised his eyes to look at Morgan dead-on. “If I can find her, I’m going to.”

Hotch stepped around Spencer and into the doorway. “You need to follow me if you want to remain on this case.” He didn’t wait for Spencer to follow, just stepped out the door and walked towards the SUV as the local PD finally arrived, neighbors beginning to look outside their homes.

He felt Derek’s eyes on him as he walked outside, his mind almost hazy as he watched cops get out of their vehicles and go towards Rebecca’s house, the door wide open. He should turn back around and at least find Jasper’s cage — she would be devastated if something happened to her cat.

Spencer glanced back and saw Emily holding the tan cage, the black fluffy cat huddled into the back of it, and for a second relief hit him — this was his team, his _family_ , they were going to stop at nothing to help.

Hotch was waiting on the side of the SUV that faced the house, a modicum of privacy from the road and the public as he stared at Spencer. Both of them were painfully silent and still, until Hotch raised his chin slightly and looked down at the very agent he recruited straight from the academy, stuck his neck out for, and considered a son.

“I won’t ask what she is to you, instead I’ll ask if you can keep a level head during this.”

Spencer cleared his throat, trying to swallow back the bile rising.

Hotch spurred forward. “Because if you cannot, then I _cannot_ allow you anywhere near this case, but we both know you’ll be more help with us, finding her and our unsub, then you will be if I send you back to DC.” He crossed his arms and then his expression softened, not enough that any of the officers walking past could notice — but enough that Spencer could. “And we will find her. But I need your head to be clear so we can do this the right way.”

It wasn’t like he didn’t know the risks involved in being at the forefront of the case. He had seen it with Morgan back in Chicago just barely after Spencer joined the team, with JJ, Emily, Penelope, Hotch and Haley — Spencer’s stomach rolled at the memory. His hands clenched at his side as he stared at Hotch, rolling his jaw before speaking again.

“Come with me to the last location?”

“Of course.”

L

The first thing was the smell.

It was a mixture of old seafood and oil. The oil she was used to — her grandparents lived near logging country and she swore each logging truck smelled like the diesel fuel they pumped them with to haul trees up and down the mountain. The seafood turned her stomach enough that she felt bile in the back of her throat.

Her head slumped forward as she tried to swallow it back, desperate for a drink. It was like trying to break through anesthesia, everything seemed murky and clouded until her body began to catch her mind up, or maybe it was vice versa. Rebecca wasn’t quite certain, the only thing she was certain of was the silhouette across a concrete floor from her.

Her anxiety had been preparing herself for this for years. The straight injection of adrenaline in her system woke her up in a moment, pushing the migraine back and shoving every symptom she had been struggling with for forty-eight hours to the side.

The shadow moved, stepping closer before coming into the dim lighting filtering through the windows. Rebecca wasn’t sure she wanted to tear her eyes from him, but the flooring, the oil, the _smell_ — it was a warehouse of some kind, and the chair she was bound to was metal and bolted to the ground.

Her nails bit into her palm as she tightened her fists behind her, her eyes trained on the man as he crouched in front of her.

“My… _goddess_.” He reached up, his smile lighting his eyes as he touched the side of her jaw, running dirty hands over her cheek tenderly. “You’re awake.”

She wanted to flinch and it took every ounce of control in her muscles to only move her head slightly away from him. There was no telling what he was capable of, and her mind was _screaming_ at her that she needed to be careful. Something about this situation was too similar to the case her friend had told her about in South Carolina — a woman taken, found dead in a warehouse, the man gone.

“Yes.” Her voice shook as she answered him, looking down at him and sucking in another breath, trying to sound firm. “Yes, it’s me.”

“But… is it _you_?” He laughed a little, the breath expelling hot air onto her skin as he moved his hand down her throat and touched the old cardigan she had on. He pulled his hand away finally and shook his head, sitting back on his haunches. “I think it is, but I can’t tell yet. I’ve searched for you for _so long_ , my love. I have to make sure it’s not another trick, another heretic.”

She was going to have a heart attack, or maybe a panic attack, or maybe both. Her heart was the only sound she could hear in her ears as she stared at him, swallowing around the bile in her mouth and throat. Her breathing was ragged as she tried to force it back under control.

_Fucking years of this and you can control panic, you can do it now._

She was glad he was in front of her and couldn’t see her hands shaking as they balled in and out of fists.

“Ask me anything.” She stumbled over the words, looking at him in earnest. “It’s me.” Her acting was about as good as a student film — or maybe the first _Twilight_ movie.

He put his fingers on his lips, chewing on his thumbnail as he laughed again. This time it sounded more manic to her ears, echoing off the walls as he shook his head. “Where do I start? Where do I…” he trailed off, staring back up at her before smiling suddenly, “What’s your name?”

Her name.

“You know my name.” Rebecca swallowed as she stared at him, “I shouldn’t have to tell _you_ who I am. But this… body —“ She was grasping at straws, what would a character say in this situation? What would she write down for someone else to read, that was believable? “— This body is named Rebecca. You can call me as such.”

He actually laughed louder, shaking his head slowly as he stared up at her. His hands moved before she could think of something to stop him. They landed on her legs, pushing up under her leggings, fingers skimming her skin as she jerked backwards.

His jaw clenched.

“Do _not_ pull away from me.”

Rebecca stared down at him, breathing in harshly. “Don’t touch me.”

It was the wrong thing to say. He rose to his feet, towering over her seated form. His hand shot out again, roughly grabbing her chin and jerking her head up to look at him.

His eyes flickered over her face, moving up and down before he sneered. “You’re just another false prophet.”

He took a step back, dropping her head as he turned towards a bad laying on the floor.

Rebecca watched his back, one shoulder was uneven to the other, his posture bad like he had slumped for too many years. She tried to take in as much as she could, looking around desperately to see if her purse or anything was around. It wasn’t.

Then she laughed and he stopped in his tracks.

“Make sure before you kill me. If you kill your goddess, you’ll never have me.”

He turned around and stared at her. Pressing his lips together, he reached up and pushed his hand through his hair. Shaking his head, his gaze flickered around the warehouse. “No, you’re not her.”

“Make sure.” She said the words again, spitting them at him. “Make sure.”

He kicked the bag, his shoulders tensing as he screamed out in anger.

“You’re not her! The others —“

She interrupted him. “Did they ever question you?” She got his attention, his gaze moving back to her as she pulled against the rope. “Did you ever second-guess them?”

His hands were shaking too. “I can check. I can make sure.” He dropped down and grabbed the bag, dragging it across the floor to him as he began to root through it.

Rebecca stared up at the ceiling, closing her eyes for the barest of moments as her heart raced. If she made it out of here, it would be a miracle. She just had to make time. Time was the only way she could manage to wear him down or get away.

I

JJ had to tell her parents.

They were sitting inside the local police station, fear-stricken, nauseous. Garcia already confirmed and transferred two calls to JJ, keeping Rebecca’s older brother and sister informed on what happened. They lived states away, and Spencer didn’t want the reason he met them face-to-face to be over a body.

Her purse and car were left in the parking lot, the cashier saw her leave with a bag and a man follow her, but the teenager didn’t think much of it. The footage was on a twenty-four hour delete cycle — but Spencer’s panic it could be her next got them to the store just before the cycle looped.

He watched the footage enough that even without an eidetic memory it would have been burned into his mind for decades. She got some drinks, something to eat — all while the unsub watched her. After checking out, she walked outside and he rushed to follow her, then she didn’t show up on any other cameras.

Spencer stared at the grainy scrap of the unsub they had from the footage. He was tall, white, and exactly the age Spencer had assumed — just slightly older than all the victims, nice enough that Rebecca smiled at him when he opened the door for her.

He stepped away from the image again, staring up at the acoustic ceiling tiles in the police station as he waited for the nausea to subside.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he pulled it out, seeing Garcia’s extension and answering it immediately.

“Did you find something?”

“No, I was checking on you.” Her voice was quiet. “I’m looking, obviously, all computers on and hands on deck, but… I was worried. I just wanted to talk to you.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Spencer, I’m sorry I pushed you to sign up to any of the websites… I just wanted you to have someone to, and now look at it.”

He sat back down in the temporary case room, closing his eyes as he listened to her. “It’s not your fault, Garcia.”

“But it is!” She sounded a little frantic. “All of this and you never would have emailed her or known her and —“

“And I never would have been given the opportunity to find our unsub. We’re still a step ahead.” It pained him to say the words, but they were true. The team had never been closer to their killer, actively following him and only a half step behind in some moments. Spencer _knew_ she would be the next target, even without seeing her face first, he knew. And that was enough to bring them to Winston-Salem, to the moment where they could not only save her, but bring their unsub down as well and prevent any more death.

Garcia sniffled a little. “I’m just sorry. I really hope we get to meet her, Spencer.”

“We will.” He squeezed his hands again and then rubbed them against his slacks. “What about all the red light footage? Can you identify him in anything? There has to be a record of him, these murders have been going on for too long without a form of escalation we would have seen in paper or documentation.”

He heard her type, and then she mumbled. “I just have so little to go on. I’m working on the basis he’s from here, from the south somewhere, but there are so many white men who are tall I just…”

Spencer looked back up at the photo and then stepped closer. “His… shoulders… Garcia, look up any instance of abuse as a child, something stunted his growth. His shoulders are vastly uneven even from the angle of the cameras, something effected his posture.”

“I can work with that! I can. I’ll call you as soon as I find something.” She paused. “Spencer?”

“Yes?”

“I love you, we’re going to find her.”

He hung up the phone, letting it hang by his side as he stared at the files, information, and photos strewn across the desks and pinned to the board. There were so many options — he could have her across state lines, he could have killed and dumped her already, but Spencer knew that there was a pattern and a specific way the unsub liked to kill. He just had to figure out the why and prevent the next step.

Emily knocked on the doorframe. “Hey, brought you coffee.” She stepped inside and sat the paper cup down. “JJ said her parents are taking it well, all things considered. She may have mentioned that you were here.”

Spencer looked up, his eyebrows raising. “What would that matter?”

“Spence, Rebecca told them about you, of course.” Emily smiled slightly, shaking her head. “You think she kept them in the dark about her lanky, brainiac FBI agent boyfriend?”

He honestly hadn’t considered it. She was so private with certain things. Phone conversations whispered at night when he got home late, her quite admission she was bisexual and that she would understand if he needed time. She just asked that he tell her instead of completely stop talking to her.

Spencer didn’t know all the why’s about her, the background information that would come with shitty Chinese food and quiet admissions into the dark of a shared bed — but he desperately, so desperately, still wanted that option to be on the table.

He picked up the coffee and took a giant gulp, pushing up the sleeves of his button up. “We have to finalize this profile, otherwise we’ll never beat the clockwork of his killings.”

Emily nodded, giving him one last look before stepping back out of the room to gather the rest of the team.

The coffee Emily brought him was stone cold by the time the team was seated and talked through every aspect of the case they knew so far.

Rebecca Wright, age twenty-seven as of her birthday last month, was a published author of the popular Adult Fiction and Romance novel: _After Hours_. She had her fair share of crazy fans — Spencer finally got in touch with her agent, Justine, and saw the handful of emails she had been sent trying to get in touch with her. She had a boor tour already in the works for the novel she was working on, and for all intents and purposes — there was no reason she would be targeted.

Except for her face.

Her driver’s license didn’t do her justice. Spencer saw so many photos of her, smiling the day she got Jasper, hugging her mother after graduation from college, beaming as wide as her face could go as she held the first copy of her novel — they all were things he could stare at for ages, but it was undeniable. Her features matched the other victims’, they shared the same key characteristics, and it had to be enough for the unsub to pick her out.

The phone rang and Hotch hit the speaker button.

“Garcia, you’re on with everyone.”

“Good.” She started talking a mile a minute. “So Spencer asked me to look up anyone who had a history of abuse, and I decided to narrow it down to single mothers and then single fathers, well the fathers list I got no hits, but the single mothers with sons who showed signs of abuse were astronomical. From boyfriends and deadbeats, to the mothers themselves beating on them — I’ve got it all, buddy, it’s a mess. But then I was looking at the camera footage again and it made me think about pediatricians, so I started digging though files all through the south, came across a lot of single mothers who were struggling with opioid addiction in some form.”

“Garcia, babygirl, take a breath.” Morgan interrupted her, looking up at Rossi across the table.

She inhaled and then cleared her throat. “Right, point, making it.” Spencer looked at the speaker as typing echoed across the room. “I’m almost certain I have our unsub’s name, sending it to your devices now.”

JJ reached for her phone just as it pinged and then projected the information on the screen at the front of the conference room.

“Everyone, meet Jeffrey Vinson, age thirty-four, massive red flag, huge.” Garcia sucked a breath and then sighed. “Where do I begin? Jeffrey was born in Georgia to Virginia Green, Vinson is what she chose to write for Jeffrey’s surname, even though she listed no father on the birth certificate and didn’t have it signed by anyone. He was born early, addicted to drugs because his mother was using while pregnant —“ Garcia typed something and then sighed. “Yeah, uh, it wasn’t a great childhood for him.”

“What about his back?” Spencer spoke up, looking at the photo on the screen. He was tall, brunette, average in every regard really.

“Oh yes, his back, That’s what brought him to my attention. Jeffrey was with his mother off and on during the first decade of his life, she continued to use, CPS would be called, giant cycle — he came into school one day with a swollen shoulder, teachers had him taken to the ER and he had been severely beaten. No reports as to who, but safe to assume the mother or a “friend” of her’s if you catch my drift.”

Hotch cleared his throat. “Garcia, what would have caused the sudden murders and then this escalation?”

“That would be the death of his mother.” She sighed. “I have a death certificate and records she’s been in and out of halfway houses for the past five years, then a cause of death as a drug overdose.”

Morgan rubbed his chin, shaking his head. “That explains the killings — maybe, but then why the professional women? They have nothing to do with this, if he’s killing his mother or a surrogate for her, then he would just be targeting high risk women, drug abusers, sex workers —“

“Maybe he’s killing _for_ his mother?” Rossi interrupted, looking at the crime scene photos spread out from the files in front of them. “Do we know if she was specifically into anything that was psychotic or could cause breaks in mental stability? Would she have asked or influenced her son to do something?”

“I can look that up!” Garcia chimed back in.

Spencer pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, blinding pain shooting down the side of his head. Tension headache most likely — he didn’t get them as often as the randomly occurring migraines, but they did enjoy plaguing him at the worst possible moments.

Hotch glanced over at him and frowned, before speaking up. “Give us everything you have, Garcia, we need to know everything we can before we deliver this to the local PD.”

“I’m hurrying, fingers flying faster than Shadowfax coming to Gandalf’s aid.” The dial tone echoed across the room until Emily reached forward and turned the phone off, looking up at the reports Garcia sent.

“Bounced from homes as a kid between being with his mother… constantly around the use of drugs, maybe he’s just on them now? Maybe he’s always dabbled in them or took them up to feel closer to her?”

“That isn’t it.” Spencer rubbed his eyes, looking up. “Look at this, he’s been with the same pharmaceutical company for years as a sales representative. I…” He paused and then looked over the information again. “That’s how he finds the victims, all of them filled prescriptions and he got into the systems and chose them from that. All the same birthdays probably stalked them from the address left on their account…”

He trailed off, his mouth feeling dry as he stared at the area Rebecca lived in, and the pharmacy she used just two days ago.

“I think we need to deliver the profile.” Rossi spoke up finally. “With the profile and his image out there, we’ll find him, Reid. We’ll find where he took her.”

F

He had his thumb pressed to her jugular, feeling her pulse race under her skin as he shouted the next question directly into her face.

“What was her name! Tell me her name if you’re her!”

She flinched, unable to help it as his spit splattered across her face. It had been _hours_ of this, questions she didn’t know the answers to, workarounds she tried to come to — but she was exhausted and he was relentless.

Raising her eyes to stare up at him, she shook her head. “Jeffrey…”

“Don’t _call me that_!” He stepped backwards, angrily throwing trash and scraps left around the warehouse. He kicked a piece of metal, sending it scraping and skittering down the length of the warehouse. She’d managed to get his name out of him in a less than lucid moment.

She just wasn’t sure who she was supposed to be.

As much as Rebecca could understand, she was here because he thought she was a higher… being. She couldn’t tell if she was supposed to be a goddess, angel, demon… he used a lot of the terms interchangeably and her head was starting to feel like it was being split in two with a meat cleaver. She wished that she could just figure out the right things to say and slip out of here, find someone to help, and go to bed. She just wanted to rest.

“I should fucking _kill_ you for even speaking back to me —“

“Jeffrey.” She looked up at him as he whirled around. This happened a lot, for the past… God knows how many hours she had been awake with him, manic and switching back and forth between saying she was going to kill him or he was going to kill her because she was a liar, she at least figured out the pattern.

He breathed heavily, his eyes bloodshot. “Don’t use my name.”

“But you’re my follower, Jeffrey.” Her eyes were heavy, but she blinked slowly once and then forced them back open, staring at him. “You’ve been searching for me and now I’m here.”

“Tell me her name.” He demanded again, storming forward and grabbing her chin. “What was her _name_? You appeared to her! You spoke to her! You told my mother that you loved her and then she died!”

Rebecca swallowed, there were hundreds of thousands of names.

“I only knew her as my chosen one.”

“Fucking _liar_!” He jerked his hand back and then brought it down, slamming it into the side of her cheek.

She saw stars, bursts of light behind her eyes as the room spun from the force of his blow. What little on her stomach rolled and bile rose into the back of her throat.

“Why…” She struggled as her head slumped forward, trying to get the room to return to a level field of view. “Why would you hit your goddess, Jeffrey?”

“Because you’re not _her_. You’re not.” He laughed, the sound fracturing as it tapered off. “You’re not her, this is a waste of my time, I have to find another one. I have to keep killing you all, you’re all just trying to _be_ her, but you’ll never be her. She wouldn’t bleed.”

A droplet of red dripped onto the concrete floor as Rebecca lifted her head again, feeling the blood roll down her lips and chin from her nose.

“I have to appear human to people on Earth, Jeffrey. What if someone found out about me and was afraid of my power?” Her voice broke, desperately trying to keep him at bay. “Are you afraid of my power?”

Jeffrey grabbed her by the hair, ripping it away from her scalp as he jerked her head back and forced her to look up at him. Reaching behind them, he undid the rope that was holding her to the chair, leaving her hands bound as he ripped her up from her seat.

“You’ve been the worst one yet, demon.” He spat the words as he turned her around and threw her to the ground, facing one of the walls.

She dropped to her knees, feeling them both buckle at the impact and falling onto her side. He was walking away from her, going to the bag he kept pacing around, kicking, toying with.

From it, he produced a club, dirty and already caked with blood and hair.

E

A red light camera matched Jeffrey’s car on record with one that passed through a light heading south towards the Yadkin River.

Spencer was strapping a black bulletproof vest over his button-up shirt as Morgan prepped his gun next to him. The whole area was being searched, top to bottom with the hope that what they found would be Jeffrey Vinson just before his final stages, not after them.

Once Spencer was sure the vest was tight enough, he checked his gun, staring down at the standard-issue Glock in his hand and swallowing.

“The left bank is clear.” Hotch spoke to the two of them over the intercom, “Prentiss and Rossi are headed back towards you with local PD, SWAT is moving to our side. She has to be in one of the remaining ten we haven’t gotten close to yet.”

Spencer raised his eyes and stared at Morgan. The older man reached out and grabbed Spencer’s arm, squeezing it.

“We’re going to find her.”

“Make that eight warehouses,” JJ spoke up over the earpieces. “I just swept the perimeter two with some of the cops, we think we may have spotted Vinson’s car halfway between four and five, sending someone to confirm the plates.”

Spencer’s blood ran cold. He nodded at Morgan and then wrapped his hand around his gun, holstering it carefully before looking up as Emily and Rossi arrived, Hotch close behind them with the head of the local department.

“Can we confirm the plates?” Hotch pressed against the earpiece, looking across the road at the warehouses in question. From this angle, they couldn’t see anything, but it didn’t mean that Vinson’s car wasn’t there, just hidden behind dumpsters and forgotten machinery.

The radio on the hip of Detective Mark Johnson beeped. He pulled it out of his belt and pressed the button.

“What is it?”

There was feedback, then a deep voice. “Yeah, uh, plates match. No light in the fifth building, but there’s a little bit of light and we swear we heard some movement in the fourth.”

Spencer’s hand was unholstering his gun in a moment, pushing past Emily and the detective. He had one focus and that was the building with Rebecca in it.

“Hey!” Detective Johnson grumbled and then reached out, grabbing Spencer’s shoulder.

Spencer jerked backwards, breaking the hold and pushing the detective back. “Don’t touch me.”

“Reid —“ Hotch started forward but Spencer was already letting him go.

“Boy, I don’t know where you think you’re going, we gotta get SWAT over here and the rest of my men —“

“I’m going to save my girlfriend’s life.” Spencer cut him off, staring down at the shorter man as he squared his shoulders.

“I don’t know who you think you are, Agent Reid —“

“You will either follow me or get out of my way, and it’s doctor.” He lifted his gun and glanced over at Hotch, fully aware he had flown past the line that was acceptable, but refusing to step back down.

They let him lead, the SWAT truck pulling in behind the team as Spencer led them towards the alley where the two buildings met. Sure enough, the black Chevrolet car was parked, trunk wide open and residue just under the hood. Spencer didn’t want to think about which victim it was from, especially not if it was Rebecca’s.

The warehouse door was propped open to his left, a rock sitting between the metal frame and the rusted door. If he pulled it open, it would squeak, but the windows were too high for any of them to safely climb the crumbling metal and brick sides.

Then he heard a scream.

Spencer’s vision tunneled as he ripped the door back, kicking the rock out of the way as he checked the entrance first, Morgan by his hip as he cleared the first hallway, abandoned desks and strewn papers everywhere. It was the old office entrance, but there was light just beyond the cracked glass separating them from the main warehouse.

He felt Emily come up to his right and glanced over as she checked the rest of the office space. Jeffrey Vinson didn’t show signs of a partner, but they could never be sure.

Spencer tried to keep his strides even as he neared the broken doorway to the warehouse. The door was ripped off its hinges, either from the weather or squatters, leaving him to crouch just behind it, sliding out slowly to check the warehouse beyond.

It was painfully still and empty, except for the small area where the machines used to be hooked up, some metal chairs still bolted to the floor from the days they held workers soldering metal and checking equipment. There weren’t many of the chairs left, but one at almost the very end of the row, towards the back of the warehouse, was empty with a rope on the floor.

A man stood with a club in his hand, shielding Spencer’s view of who he was standing behind.

“Jeffrey Vinson, drop the weapon!” Spencer’s voice ricocheted across the warehouse, standing up as he walked forward, his gun ahead of him. “Drop it now!”

The sound of his team behind him, heavy footfalls on concrete, were the only things keeping him grounded as he neared the scene. Jeffrey turned slightly, his eyes wide as he stared at them all, his eyes flickering across everyone’s face.

“She was a liar. I had to do it.” He dropped the club as Spencer reached him first.

Morgan kicked it out of reach and grabbed their unsub, his hands around the other man’s arms as Hotch descended, jerking Vinson’s arms behind his back and cuffing him.

On the cold concrete floor was a body. Spencer dropped immediately to his knees, his chest tight as he reached out, pushing his gun into his holster with one hand. She was curled up, her legs underneath her, and her arms halfway out of the ropes that had obviously held her for hours. Spencer’s hand touched Rebecca’s hair, slick with blood as he choked out.

“ _Rebecca_ , Rebecca can you hear me?”

She stirred slightly at his touch and Spencer looked up at Emily frantically as he tried to figure out what to do, his brain warring with his hands as he instinctively wanted to pull her up and to him.

“We need paramedics inside the warehouse right now, we need medical and a stretcher.”

Rebecca moved her head, her eyes hazed over with tears, and the lower half of her face covered in blood from her nose. Lifting it as much as she could with the blinding pain after being struck by the club, she saw him.

Spencer’s eyes were filled with tears as he did what he deemed acceptable, grabbing the rope and ripping it off her arms, shakily helping her as she turned over on the concrete.

“Spencer,” She smiled up at him, a gruesome sight, but one he wouldn’t have traded for any other option. “You’re here?”

The EMTs were next to them faster than he could process, bracing her neck and transferring her to a stretcher. She reached her hand out, fumbling against the neck brace as one of them told her to stop moving.

“Spencer.”

He grabbed her hand, jogging beside the paramedics as they rolled her towards the now-open main warehouse doors and towards the ambulance’s lights. He didn't know where the rest of the team was, or Vinson for that matter, but not a single person stood in his way as he kept stride with them.

“I’m not going anywhere.” He climbed up into the ambulance, clamoring to stay out of the way but keeping her hand firmly in his as he stared down at her. “You’re going to be okay, you’re going to be fine, Rebecca.”

Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, against the harsh lighting, he could see her veins against her skin, her hair matted with blood and cuts on her face from where she had been struck. Around her wrist, were burns from the rope rubbing her skin and bruising from being thrown around.

Rebecca’s fingers tightened around his. “Thank you.”

> “I know for sure that love saves me and that it is here to save us all.” Maya Angelou

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) Thank you to everyone who has patiently waited for this! It was a wee bit intense to write. Next chapter will have a domestic ending but also there will be a point where you can stop reading or go forward with the explicit ending. It's not done yet, but I figured Rebecca and Spencer need some happiness.


	5. | Part Five | Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It ends - as all successful cases do - with some wine, flushed cheeks, and a happy evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to sincerely thank everyone who took their time to read, leave kudos, or even comment on this little story. It was so much fun to write and I appreciate it! I hope you enjoy the final part of Aura.
> 
> The rating has officially been bumped up to E for explicit. If you would like to end the story on a mature note, you can finish reading as soon as you see the final "A" break. (Four parts down, as Spencer and Rebecca arrive at his apartment) Everything past this break is explicit.

> “The aura given out by a person or object is as much a part of them as their flesh.” Lucian Freud

_A soul and an aura are often separated in concepts and definitions. In actuality, the common definition is that the soul exists as the very essence of a being — the exact definition of an aura._

Rebecca had nothing more than a bad concussion.

And for that, Spencer was eternally grateful.

The doctors refused to let him back after the paramedics unloaded her at the closest hospital. It hurt, but within ten minutes, her parents had arrived and by the end of the night her sister and brother both drove or flew just to check on her. Though as the night bled into the early hours of the morning, Spencer lingered, uncertain if he should have stayed. JJ called around two am to let him know the rest of the team were at the hotel and that Hotch would be by in the morning to help get Rebecca’s witness statement, but Spencer couldn’t go yet, not until he saw her again.

Just as he began to doze off in the waiting room, a nurse stepped out.

“Sir?”

Spencer startled awake, staring at her.

“Miss Wright asked if you were here.” The nurse smiled. “I’m assuming you’re Dr. Reid?”

He fumbled to get out his badge and then flashed it at her. “Yeah, yes that’s me.”

“This way then,” She wound him back through the halls of the emergency room, coming to one where she quietly knocked on the door and then let them both inside.

Rebecca stirred awake in the bed, a smile lighting up her face as Spencer rounded the short corner. The nurse glanced between them and then quietly let herself out, shutting the door behind her.

“Hey,” Her voice was raspy and she cleared it, reaching for the jug of water sitting on the table next to her.

Spencer jumped forward, picking it up and handing it to her as he smiled back, “Hey.”

She took a sip and then laughed, shaking her head a little. There was a bandage above her eye where Vinson had hit her, along with one across the back of her head. Cuts and bruises scattered her hands, arms, and face, but they would heal. Nothing was irreparable.

“Not at all how I imagined our first meeting.” She looked up at him, reaching her hand out and carefully touching his fingers with her own. Spencer glanced down just before she wrapped her hand around his. “How did… How?”

It was his turn to smile, Spencer squeezed her hand as delicately as he could, shifting to sit on the edge of the hospital bed, right by her legs. “I didn’t want to consider it, but Vinson was moving through the south and we found out he was picking victims from their last filled prescriptions, plus choosing areas that were near rivers and water as…”

“Dumpsites, it’s okay.” Rebecca squeezed his hand back. “I had to… process a lot of outcomes while I was tied to that chair.”

Spencer shifted on the bed and touched the bandage along her head softly, skimming the edge of it. “I worked as quickly as I could to find you, if I’d been sooner…”

“You found me, Spencer.” Rebecca pushed her IV out of the way, leaning forward in the bed until she was close enough to him to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

Spencer’s skin broke out into goosebumps under his shirt, turning his head to look at her, almost nose-to-nose with her. He couldn’t process her expression, the way she said his name — the profiler and agent in him knew she was right. It didn’t matter if it was the very last second, he found her and she was alright.

He lifted a hand and touched her jaw gently, “I found you.”

She leaned into his hand, her eyes flickering up to look at him, and then back down.

Spencer pulled her a half-inch closer, pressing his lips against her’s as he broke the empty space and drew her closer. With a feather-light touch, he skimmed over the back of her hair, touching the back of her neck and holding his other hand there as their lips finally broke. Their noses brushed as he inhaled with a tiny smile.

“That was really, really worth the wait.” Rebecca laughed breathlessly, pressing her head against his head and then her cheek against his.

A

For once, the office felt peaceful. The only cases that came across JJ’s desk for the past month were small-town consulting jobs that were split across the team. Some of them went to Emily, Rossi, Morgan, or even Hotch, but there were no cases that required the whole team to fly out. It was good too, because the Vinson case required a lot of paperwork, a lot of witness statements, and Spencer’s undivided attention as he sought to get him put away for life.

It turned out that Vinson’s mother died of an overdose one month before the string of murders happened to span the south, but prior to that he had a reoccurring history of incidents, ranging from aggression towards foster home siblings, halfway house kids, and coworkers at jobs as a teenager to a file against him of harassment and stalking just after Vinson turned twenty-one.

Then Garcia found the good stuff. When Jeffrey Vinson’s mother, Virginia, was in her first drug rehabilitation center, paid for by Jeffrey — there were psychiatric records of her claiming that God was trying to speak to her — more specifically a goddess.

Vinson was spotted on a camera in January visiting his mother on the street, finding her body cold next to a parking garage, and taking a piece of paper from her that they found in his bag after the arrest. It wasn’t a very detailed drawing, sketched in a half-dried pen was a beautiful woman with a round face, high cheekbones, and a pronounced cupid’s bow.

It was Vinson’s guide to finding his goddess.

Luckily, between Rebecca’s witness testimony and the bodies tied to the club found on his person, it would be an easy case.

“Hey, I think I may have another case.” JJ stepped down into the bullpen, waving a file around as she leaned on the edge of Morgan’s desk, which had been empty since lunch.

Emily grabbed a pen and twirled it around in her fingers. “Great, I was really looking forward to an easy weekend.”

“You know, statistically we should really only have a couple cases a year, mostly cold cases, as most of the time local police departments are more than well equipped to deal with any kind of —“

“Shh,” Rossi said as he walked down the stairs to stand next to JJ. “Not today, kid.”

Spencer shrugged and picked up his phone. With a smile, he opened a text from Rebecca, seeing a photo of her finally back at her desk with Jasper sitting next to her. Emily still asked about that cat.

Hotch finally joined them, clearing his throat. “Where’s Morgan?” He glanced around then looked at JJ. “I’ll go get Garcia, JJ just handle the briefs.” He turned just as quickly as he arrived to walk back towards the offices.

Emily shrugged and stood up, “He did say he was going to be a while for lunch. Lay it on us, JJ.” She grabbed her afternoon coffee and led the rest of the team to the conference room.

As she was sitting down and JJ was getting the screen set up — something Garcia would normally do — Hotch walked in faster than normal, a file clutched on his hand as he cleared his throat.

Morgan was two steps behind, Garcia three, both in stages of disarray.

“Hotch, I —“

“Oh God.” Garcia was whispering, smoothing out her hair.

Spencer looked up at the same time as JJ. His eyes widened slightly at their rumpled clothes, Garcia’s buttercup dress askew at the hem and one button off at the top.

“I don’t think I need to repeat this, but please do not make me lecture you both on workplace relationships.”

“ _No_.” Emily whispered, then exploding in laughter, “You two… and Hotch saw…”

“Prentiss.” Hotch rubbed his eyes, “I— JJ please, the case.”

JJ had to stifle her laughter as she turned to the screen. “Yeah, uh — Washington, potentially a kidnapping that escalated —“

They didn’t have to fly out to Washington immediately, JJ was going to send in a few suggestions and a profile worked up by Hotch before anyone went to investigate the case in person. As Spencer was gathering his bag for the end of the day, Rossi came to join everyone in the bullpen again, a wide grin on his face.

“Dinner, my place, Italian themed, of course.” He smiled as Emily pumped her fist. “Next Friday.” Rossi looked at Spencer then, “Isn’t Rebecca coming next week?”

Spencer glanced up from his phone, fingers hovering over the send button as he cleared his throat. “Uh, yes. She’s settling her plans now. As long as we don’t get called out on a case.”

Rossi smiled at him. “Make sure to invite her.”

U

The man at the gate was extremely kind as Rebecca anxiously fumbled for the visitor’s pass she had been drop-shipped overnight. It wasn’t like there was a “list” at the FBI headquarters, it was more of an unspoken rule — at least she assumed. She didn’t actually know if there were sniper guns pointed at her as she tried to prove to the security officer that she was, in fact, supposed to be there.

She gave the security officer one of her spare cookies before he let her pull through to the guest parking. Gathering up the box and thank you cards, Rebecca nervously pulled at her sweater, the air finally turning chilly as fall neared. She still had a pang at the top of her right cheekbone, though the bruise had long faded and the scar had healed except for a thin white line she covered with concealer — the wound still felt open as she stared up at the beige building.

Rebecca showed the pass to the officer at the door, underdressed compared to suits and skirts in the lobby as she got the exact floor number from the receptionist and stepped into the elevator. Her nerves were shot by the time the floors began to get closer and closer to her stop.

The ding made her jump slightly, clutching the box of cookies as she stepped into the hallway and looked around, the badge on her shirt bouncing. There were glass doors, and just through them, she saw him.

Spencer had his head thrown back, laughing hard at something a woman with black hair was saying. There was a black man sitting next to them, laughing just as hard and covering his face with a hand. Rebecca stepped forward, taking a deep breath before pulling the door open.

The woman looked up first, lines appearing next to her eyes as she grinned — Emily — Spencer had definitely mentioned her, the man sitting was definitely Derek, and the older man was Rossi. She had his latest book in her bag.

Carefully, Rebecca took the couple steps down to the desks, Spencer’s back still to her. Derek finally caught her appearance, a smile breaking out on his face.

“What?” She could hear Spencer ask, then he turned halfway and paused.

Rebecca smiled softly up at him, “Surprise.”

A thousand emotions played across his face, but finally, Spencer just babbled. “How?”

She shrugged, laughing a little. “Agent Hotchner, I let him know I wanted to come to DC a little early.” Rebecca glanced down at the box and then held it up. “I actually have this for you all.” She carefully set it on the edge of one of the desks. “Uh, and cards.” She extended them to Emily. “As a thank you for saving my life.”

Spencer stared down at her, shaking his head as he smiled. “You’re… here.”

Rebecca laughed and nodded, staring up at him. “Yes, I’m here.”

He fumbled before reaching out and touching her arm, then pulling her a half step closer and leaning down to kiss her forehead. “You’re _here_.” The words were softer this time, whispered into her hair as Rebecca leaned into his chest. The sweater vest he was wearing today smelled like warm spices, a little sweet but husky.

Somewhere behind them, Emily quietly awed.

When Spencer pulled away, he kept a hand on the small of her back as she watched the three team members open their cards. Morgan was the first one to open the box of cookies and eat one, then JJ trickled out of her office and Rebecca stepped forward to give her a card and smile.

“My mom wanted me to say thank you, for everything you did to help calm them down.”

JJ smiled. “It’s my job.”

“Oh my _God_ are those cookies?” Garcia came running through the door and down the stairs. Rebecca barely had time to look over her shoulder before Garcia was sweeping her up into a massive hug. “You’re here!”

Rebecca laughed and hugged her back, “I made them myself, and I have a card for you. Because Spencer told me how hard you worked to find me.”

“Of course.” Garcia rolled her eyes. “And find you I did, my pretty little southern belle.” Garcia poked Rebecca’s nose before grabbing the cookie out of Morgan’s hand and taking a bite.

The final person to arrive was Hotch himself, stepping down with a smile to stand next to Rossi.

“I’m glad you made it, Rebecca.”

Rebecca smiled up at him, extending a card to him too. “Thank you, Agent Hotchner, for helping me with my visitor’s pass and everything you did to save my life.”

Spencer made a noise next to her and Rebecca turned her head to see him grimacing. “I didn’t get a card.”

Rebecca stared at him for a second and then laughed. “ _I’m_ your damn card.”

Morgan whistled and laughed as Spencer looked down at her. “But what about a cookie?”

“Kid, you’re probably going to get better than a cookie this weekend.” Morgan wiggled an eyebrow as Garcia smacked him on the shoulder.

“Okay, okay,” Rossi muttered, holding his hands up. “Thank you for the card, Rebecca.” He smiled at her as he held one of the cookies. “We’re all just glad you’re alright.”

“Actually…” She hesitated and then pulled out the copy of _Eyes of a Predator_ , holding it out to him with a slight flush to her cheeks. “I was hoping you could sign this.If not, I completely understand, but —“

Rossi snatched it from her eagerly, flipping the cover open and stealing a pen from Emily’s desk. “Of course I’ll sign it.” As his hand was flourishing across the title page, he glanced up at Spencer and said. “Reid, keep her.”

Spencer ran a hand through his hair, looking down at Rebecca with a slight flush to his cheeks. Everyone else was too busy eating cookies or scanning the various cards to hear him, but Spencer smiled as he looked at her softly. “I intend to.”

Rebecca smiled up at him and grabbed his hand, squeezing it once quickly, and then threading their fingers together for good measure.

Agent Hotchner was kind enough to wave Spencer away even though it was only Thursday and the workday wasn’t quite over yet. As Rebecca walked with Spencer towards the elevator, she felt her nerves flare back up once they were inside alone.

Spencer looked over at her, casual jeans, a huge mauve-colored sweater with little pom-poms on the arms, her curly hair pulled back half-way, a bobble of a bun on top of her head and her glasses slightly askew on her face.

His fingers itched and the urge didn’t stop until he stepped closer and slid his hand over hers again. Rebecca’s head shot up, looking up at him with a little smile as Spencer took the rare opportunity of silence and peace to bend his head down and kiss her. He wanted to do it from the moment he turned and saw her, but it had been so long since the hospital and he was so uncertain if it was still okay — if there was still something.

She reached up and cupped his cheek, standing on her toes just slightly to press her lips back against his, quelling those fears and more as she laughed into the kiss. The elevator jerked and she stumbled forward half a step, into his chest and pressing his back against the elevator wall.

Spencer pressed his other hand against her back, fisting the soft material in his hand as he kissed her harder, a little hungry, but desperate to never lose the memory of her touch against his. She was all the cliches, water to a man in the desert, wine to a thirty-year sober alcoholic, or a shot of straight Dilaudid to his veins. He honestly couldn’t imagine the other outcomes, though it had kept him up after returning to DC. He had to constantly remind himself that she was okay, it was just easier to do when she was in his arms.

The motion of the elevator slowing and finally stopping made Rebecca reluctantly pull away. The last she wanted was an elevator load of FBI agents in suits to see her pressed against an armed agent.

Spencer pushed a piece of her hair back from her face and gave her a goofy smile. “I missed you.”

Rebecca smiled up at him, covering his hand with her’s. “I missed you too.”

She didn’t plan on doing anything for the afternoon other than settling into her hotel room, but Spencer insisted that they go out together. She finally relented after dropping him off at home and giving him the information for her hotel.

Spencer was waiting for her at seven sharp with a car pulled just in front of her hotel. Since he didn’t tell her what they were doing, Rebecca didn’t change, and she was grateful for that as he drove them to a small park just outside of DC. She cast him a curious glance when she noticed the number of other people walking towards the center of the park, but she didn’t fully understand until he urged her out of the car and grabbed a bag from the backseat.

There was a stage set up for Shakespeare in the Park, a community production of _Othello_ — her favorite — and Spencer spread out a blanket with takeout from his favorite Thai place for the both of them.

Rebecca didn’t remember much of the evening after eating, just lazy kisses under the stars, tucked up into Spencer’s chest as he whispered lines of poetry as the actors recited them.

R

Friday was spent all day in DC proper. Rebecca’s agent, Justine, wanted some proof copies signed and sent to bloggers and reviewers, but there were also meetings on whether or not she would be comfortable with a full book tour considering what happened with Vinson. Rebecca settled halfway, a few in-person appearances, but mostly a lot of social media content and interviews.

She made a short stop to shop around and run into a liquor store before getting ready for the dinner that both Agent Rossi and Garcia invited her to again. Rebecca honestly didn’t know how both of them got her cell number, but she imagined it was better left unknown.

Spencer was again in front of the hotel by the time Rebecca was ready for dinner. His white Volvo shining as she got into the passenger side. Shooting him a grin, she put two bottles of wine into the backseat and then leaned over to peck his cheek.

“How was your day?”

Spencer chuckled, reaching over and sliding his hand into hers before pulling away from the hotel. “Fine, Hotch told me I could leave but it was easy to just finish some paperwork. I knew you were busy.” He pulled out onto the road and then glanced over at her. “How were your meetings?”

“Good!” Rebecca beamed at him, holding his hand tightly as she stared out the window at D.C. “We’ll be doing a select few appearances but mostly online signings, and I’m signing preorders.”

“Send me the list of in-person dates and I’ll be there.” He smiled over at her and squeezed her hand before making a turn. Rossi’s house was outside of D.C. proper, there was no way for him to own six acres of land inside the city, besides, he preferred the privacy of being outside the area they all worked in.

“Spencer,” Rebecca leaned back in her seat, shaking her head. “There are a half dozen appearances all over the East and West coast, you can’t come to them all.”

“I have vacation days.” He shrugged, then glanced back over at her. “And I want to. I want to make sure you’re safe. I’m sure Rossi would come too, or the rest of the team. I can always ask a couple of them to drop in over all of them.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes, making a noise in the back of her throat. “I’m _okay_. I don’t need babysitters from the FBI.”

“What about your boyfriend?”

She fell silent, watching his hands worry against the steering wheel, his thumb rubbing the same spot as silence hung between them.

She broke the silence after a moment, chewing on her lip before reaching over and laying a hand on his slacks. “Yeah, I need my boyfriend. I’m always going to be grateful I signed up for that stupid website.”

“Me too.” Spencer cast a look in her direction, his eyes soft as he drank her in. Her hair was pulled away from her face, but still long and curly down to the tops of her shoulders, and the sweater she chose for the evening was a lower neck, exposing her collarbones depending on how she shifted, skimming over the top of her chest.

It had taken everything in him not to follow her upstairs to her hotel the night before, but that wasn’t the point of taking her to see Shakespeare in the park, the whole point was that he wanted to spend time with her outside of the restraints of work of any kind. Or the looming threat of a serial killer.

Rebecca was smiling at him when Spencer shook himself out of it, making sure not to miss the turn that put him on the highway towards Rossi’s place. Pushing her hair back, she pulled her hand away from his leg and then pulled her phone out, finding the schedule her agent sent her and sending it to Spencer, along with Garcia.

“There, six appearances,” She looked up at him, shaking her head slightly with a tiny smile, “But do not take vacation days for all of them.”

“I won’t if it’s on a weekend.” Spencer gave her a coy smile as he took the next exit and began winding back past impressive homes and mansions.

Rebecca stared out the windows, her eyes wide as they passed homes with huge gates in front of their private driveways. She knew it wasn’t like the ambassador homes in DC, these were the homes of politicians, high-level lobbyists, FBI, CIA, and senators. Spencer’s car slowed, then turned, pulling up to a gate and leaning halfway out to plug in the code.

The mansion was huge, tucked into the trees, white and cream with an inviting front porch. There were already multiple cars in the driveway as Spencer pulled in last and got out. He made it to the passenger side before Rebecca could process where they were and opened the door for her.

She shot him a look and then pulled the two bottles of wine out of the backseat. Spencer wrapped his arm around her and then kissed the side of her head. “Rossi is just very flashy.”

“I can tell.” She turned her head, looking up at him and sighing. “I feel like maybe I should have spent a little more on the wine.”

“That won’t matter,” Spencer assured her, shutting the door to the backseat and then leading her towards the front door. “Trust me.”

The door was unlocked, something that didn’t really shock Rebecca considering there were six armed agents on the premises. This would probably be the safest dinner party she would ever attend.

“You see, you have to feel that the pasta is ready.” Rossi could be heard in the kitchen, talking quietly as Spencer and Rebecca rounded the corner.

A little boy with blond hair perked up, throwing his arms out. “Uncle Spence!” He rushed Spencer and got scooped up in his godfather’s arms as Rebecca smiled.

“There you two are.” Rossi smiled as he picked up a glass of white wine. “I was beginning to think you got lost.”

“I would have,” Rebecca admitted, laughing a little as she stepped over, offering one bottle of wine to him first. “For cooking.” She produced the other one. “And for drinking. I couldn’t come empty-handed.”

Rossi clicked his tongue, “You are too kind, Rebecca.” He went to retrieve a corkscrew as Garcia perked up on the couch.

“Those cookies were amazing! I didn’t even have any leftover after this morning.” She took a sip of her wine. “You have to send me the recipe, even though I’ll probably never bake them.”

Everyone was scattered across the living, dining, and kitchen areas. While Rossi was stirring a pot of soup and checking on the noodles, Hotch was leaning against the back of the couch with a glass in his hand and a fully relaxed expression. There was a man next to JJ that Rebecca didn’t recognize, but after Spencer put down the little boy he ran over to the both of them.

Garcia was snuggled up to Morgan on the couch, Morgan’s arm around her. Meanwhile Emily was perched on the arm of a high-backed chair, an incredibly beautiful red-headed woman sitting down with her hand on Emily’s thigh.

Spencer startled Rebecca by wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her against his side. Her head fell back, smiling as she looked up at him again. She loved his hands, perfectly sized, just the right amount of pressure as they touched her sweater, pressing into her skin underneath it and grounding her in the moment.

“I’ll send you the recipe. It’s my dad’s.” She smiled at Garcia, “trust me, they would taste like burnt chocolate chips and sawdust if it was my recipe. Cooking totally skipped me.”

“You just need practice.” Rossi insisted, holding out a glass of wine to both Spencer and Rebecca. “A few dinners with me and you’d make an Italian grandmother proud.”

Rebecca laughed as she took the glass. She wasn’t one to drink normally, but the first sip was the perfect mix of bitter and sweet and Rossi’s home was warm and full of laughter as everyone settled in around the countertop.

The little boy, Henry, was JJ’s, her husband, William, was from Louisiana and met JJ on a case. Rebecca found it funny that no matter how hard any of the team seemed to try, they all met someone who instinctively became intertwined with their work. Emily’s girlfriend — Katherine — was a media liaison for the Secret Service.

It was easy to fall into a conversation with everyone, especially because whenever there was a lull in the conversation, Henry would run over and ask Spencer a question about a random dinosaur or type of car. Spencer would rattle off the fact and Henry would look up at him with huge eyes and then ask his parents if they heard what Spencer just said.

Dinner was at eight, Italian chicken soup and homemade carbonara. Lots of wine was opened and shared across the table, the house full of the noise of clinking dinnerware and jokes jabbed across the table.

As Morgan took another drink, his focus shifted to Rebecca. “So, how often are we going to get to see you?”

Rebecca laughed, feeling her cheeks flush from more than just the alcohol. “I don’t know. I really like my house, but I’ve always wanted to live in the city.”

Spencer smiled around the bite of carbonara.

“Morgan, don’t harass her.” Hotch finished off his glass and caught the ire of Morgan all in one movement. The conversation shifted to Hotch and a running friend he apparently knew.

Spencer’s hand slid over Rebecca’s thigh, squeezing it once under the table as everyone finished dinner. Garcia and Rebecca helped Rossi clean up the plates as Emily fiddled with an old record player in the living room. William and Morgan pulled the glass coffee table out of the way as Emily put on a record and offered her hand to Katherine. The two women began dancing, a little tipsy on wine and laughing as they spun around in little circles in the living room.

William and JJ joined them, then soon Garcia was pulled away from the kitchen by Morgan.

Rebecca scrubbed a plate, catching Rossi glancing over at her.

“How are you doing?”

She carefully placed the china on a towel, shrugging slightly. “I’m okay.” Carefully, she dried the plate and then stacked it with the ones Garcia had abandoned. “I’m fairly certain I’ll never go to a Dollar General again, but that’s not exactly a bad thing.” She cleared her throat, looking over her shoulder as Henry danced on top of Spencer’s feet in the living room. “And I have you all to thank for saving my life.”

Rossi turned off the water, drying his hands off with a towel. “I think I can safely speak for the rest of the team,” He turned to face her, patting her shoulder softly, “We’ve never seen Spencer happier, and it would have devastated us all to have never met you.”

Rebecca smiled up at him and glanced over at the nearly five empty bottles of wine, “Thank you, but maybe lay off the final glass.”

Rossi laughed and nudged her out of the kitchen.

Spencer looked up to see her standing just on the edge of the living room. Emily ushered Henry over between her and Katherine, dancing in a little circle with the three of them. Stepping closer, Spencer offered his hand to Rebecca, a spark electrifying her blood as she took his hand and he pulled her into the center of the living room.

He spun her around slowly, pulling her back against his chest as they stepped in a small square together. His fingers strayed under the bottom of her sweater, splaying across the small of her back, warm skin against warm skin as Rebecca sighed softly and leaned her head against his chest.

Spencer’s head dropped down, kissing her hair as they rotated. The living room was warm, the music was slow, and Rebecca’s head was just fuzzy enough that everything felt a little unreal, tinged in an ethereal glow that was definitely the wine talking.

His fingers rubbed small circles into her back as she lifted her head up and pulled his face down by his chin. Kissing him slowly, she smiled into his lips, her chest tightening until they pulled apart.

His cheeks were just tinted red as she stared at him through her lashes. All this time, all the months spent writing paragraphs to each other, hushed phone calls in the dead of night, and finally the moment of seeing him just when she feared the worst — it was all worth it. Her heart was so full she felt like it was going to burst.

They were the last to arrive and the first to go.

A

Spencer’s house was closer, that was the only reason Rebecca told him to just forgo driving across DC to her hotel. It wasn’t the slightly dizzy feeling of being next to him in the quiet car, or the way her fingers itched to dig themselves into his hair.

He unlocked his apartment door for them, tugging at the collar of his shirt, his Adam’s apple bobbing before he unbuttoned the top and looked over at her as she carefully dropped her bag onto a chair in his kitchen. She kicked her shoes off as she walked towards the living room, drawn to the literal floor to ceiling bookshelves, double and triple-stacked in some places. Thick tomes next to books the width of her thumbnail.

Beside the bulk of the shelves was a coffee table stacked with even more books, and a plush brown leather couch. Rebecca ran her hand over the arm of it as she turned to look at Spencer with a little smile.

“This whole place feels like you.”

He ran a hand through his hair, kicking off his shoes as he walked towards her. Stopping just in front of her, Spencer tilted his head down and then ran his hand over her arm, down to find her fingers.

“I keep having to remind myself that you’re here. All night tonight I expected you to disappear out of the corner of my eye, to wake up and for it to have all been a fantastical story of some kind.” He wrapped his fingers around her hand, lifting it up and running them over her wrist gently, the faintest scar on the side from the rope.

Rebecca watched him, swallowing before finally gathering enough words. “I feel like I can never thank you enough, not only for what you did to find me, but for everything else. You helped me rewrite my novel, tried to take care of me from states away, and then found me at just the right moment.”

He frowned and then caught her eyes again, shaking his head. “No different than you indirectly helping me with the case, I understood so much after talking things through with you, even if you don’t remember.”

“I guess we make a pretty good team.” She whispered, her heart fluttering in her chest.

“We do.” Spencer’s chest felt abnormally tight, but he ignored it as he stepped closer, almost chest to chest with her. His lips parted as he inhaled and looked down at her, his voice lower, rougher, “Rebecca…”

She stared up at him, swallowing as she felt a shiver go up her spine. “ _Spencer_.”

He closed the space between them, cupping her face with two hands as he kissed her again, pressing his lips against her’s hard enough that they both stumbled backward towards the shelving. Rebecca reached up and threaded her fingers in his hair, backing up until she felt the shelves cut into her hips.

Spencer dropped a hand and pressed it against her hip, coaxing her legs open wide enough that he could lean between them, then sliding it back up and pushing his fingers under her sweater, exploring her warm skin again. She gasped against his lips and rolled her hips forward slightly against his slacks, her mouth falling open against his.

She pulled him closer, eliciting a groan as she tugged on his hair and then ran her teeth over his lower lip. Biting down as Spencer pulled back slightly, she let the skin go as he stared down at her.

“Christ, you’re stunning.” He sucked in a breath before kissing her hungrily again, his hand pressing against her jaw and then her neck. Rebecca moaned against his lips as his fingers tightened on her neck slightly, coasting down and pushing her sweater off one shoulder.

Pulling away from him, she pulled the sweater over her head and then jerked him back against her. His lips followed the path his hand had taken, moving across her jaw again and then sucking on her neck lightly as his hand wandered the new expanse of her skin. His fingers splayed across her stomach as she rolled against him again, arching away from the bookcase as he sucked and nibbled at the sensitive expanse of skin where her neck met her collarbone. He’d been eyeing that damn patch of skin all night.

As he inhaled, his hand moved to the top of her jeans, hesitating before she whispered. “Please.”

He popped the button of her jeans open and began the process of jerking them down her hips, dropping to his knees in front of her as he tugged them off her skin. From her vantage point above, Rebecca’s mouth went dry. His hair was everywhere, mussed as he stared up at her and dropped kisses to her stomach and thighs, finally jerking the jeans off her body.

Spencer’s brain couldn’t process the dark green lingerie she had on, a color so stark against her pale skin that his mouth began to water. He dropped his head against her thighs, sliding his hands over her ass as he pulled her hips forward slightly.

“Hold on.”

Something between a whimper and a moan fell from Rebecca’s lips as he lifted one of her legs and threw it over his shoulder. With one hand to steady her on her stomach, Spencer used his other to press his fingers against her underwear, staring up at her as her head totally dropped back to the books, her chest heaving.

He pushed the underwear aside and buried his face between her legs, his lips parting as his tongue tasted her. Spencer groaned between her legs, the vibration causing her to moan as his hand pressed against her stomach harder, keeping her in place. The last thing he wanted was for either of them to lose their balance as he worked his tongue across her and moved his fingers until they were right against her clit.

With two fingers, he touched her, causing her to jolt against him unexpectedly and grab onto his head. Her legs fell open wider as he groaned and pressed deeper, rubbing her slowly at the beginning, working her into a frenzy as his tongue thrust into her slowly.

Rebecca thought her head was going to explode as she rolled against him again, pushing his head closer against her as she cried out. “Please, faster.”

He smiled against her skin, his fingers speeding up as he languidly ate her out, his tongue moving across her until he moved his fingers and began to suck on her clit, his tongue flicking rapidly as he slid a finger into her. She clenched around him and then slowly relaxed enough until he could add a second one, pumping them slowly before speeding the movement up, curling his fingers as he pressed closer to her.

Her eyes flew open as she cried out again, rolling against him faster as her other hand joined her first one in his hair, holding him in place as she gasped out. “Spencer, Spence —“

He sped up, looking up at her from between her legs and catching her eye as he sucked harder, his fingers sliding in and out of her, rubbing quickly. She came around him, her mouth falling open as she gasped and a scream died on her lips, her thighs shaking.

Spencer pulled back, smoothing his hands over her thighs as he stood up and unbuttoned his shirt. Pushing it off, he pulled her away from the bookcase and kissed her again. She pressed against him, the two of them stumbling backward into the middle of the living room, stepping on and over clothes as he guided her towards his bedroom.

The door knocked open when they ran into it and he stopped them just before they could reach the bed, turning her around and pressing her against the wall gently. Rebecca stared up at him as his fingers popped the clasps free of her bra, pulling it away from her chest and throwing it to a corner of his room, unseen. She began to push her underwear down, but he pinned her hands back with one, eyes flickering up to her’s to make sure it was alright. With a nod from her, he dropped down to one knee and began to pull them down, running his hands over her again.

She struggled against his hand, breathing hard as she looked down at him. “I want you.”

Spencer licked his lips and then smiled as he rose back up. “Is that what you’d like?”

“Yes.” Her fingers curled around his as he began to push his slacks and underwear down. Rebecca’s eyes fell and darkened as he kicked them away.

Letting go of her hands, Spencer pulled her against him with a smile before their lips met again. It was his turn to back up until he felt the bed. His knees almost buckled before he flipped them around, pushing her back onto the bed as gently as he could.

She bounced once with a little laugh and then crawled the rest of the way up, licking her lips as he bend down to kneel on the bed, moving after her until he was leaning over top of her. They stared at one another, a piece of Spencer’s hair falling onto his forehead as he settled on top of her. With one hand supporting himself, he reached down and skimmed her body with the other, his eyes drinking her in.

Rebecca wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him down against her as she slid a leg against his.

His lips pressed against her jaw as he ran his nose across her skin. Inhaling sharply, he rolled his hips forward, settling against her before guiding himself against her with a hand. Rebecca swallowed as she turned her head slightly to look at him.

Spencer’s breathing was ragged as he met her eyes, voice soft as he whispered. “I love you.”

She pulled him against her, chest to chest as she kissed him softly until she couldn’t take it anymore, passion bleeding into it as she rolled up against him. “I love you too.”

He pushed forward until he was buried inside of her, guiding her other leg up so they were wrapped against him. Moving together, both of their groans blended together as they panted against each other’s lips. It wasn’t long before his thrusts got sharper and faster, pushing against her as she pressed up against him.

Spencer fumbled as she pressed up harder, but then pulled her up into his lap as he thrust faster, their skin slapping together as she moaned against his lips, grinding down harder and harder. His fingers clawed at her hips, moving her even faster as he felt his breathing quicken. Dropping a hand between them, he pushed the base of his palm against her and her hips stuttered once, the added friction making her cry out softly.

They grasped at each other, Rebecca’s cries growing louder as her head fell backward, nails digging into his shoulder blade as her thighs tightened rocking against him as he slammed her back down against the bed. The blankets wrapped around them as Spencer’s hand pressed against her, his other wrapping around her neck lightly.

She screamed his name as her eyes rolled back, falling apart as he slammed into her sweat on his back as he finally gasped her name and groaned. His hips stuttered to a slow stop as he carefully pulled his hand away, breathing hard as he looked down at her flushed cheeks and hair splayed across the pillow.

Rebecca laughed, sinking back into the bed as she stared up at him. “Oh my God.”

He couldn’t help the chuckle that bubbled up in his chest as he pulled out of her, dropping down to kiss her gently, running his fingers across her jaw as he whispered back. “You’re incredible, and I meant what I said. I love you.”

Rebecca’s eyes fluttered close as he rolled onto his side, following him and curling up against his chest. Kissing him slowly, breathing in deeply each time their lips parted, she smiled into the lazy movement. “I meant it too.” She touched his cheek the same way his fingers ghosted against her’s. “I love you, Spencer.”

> “Nobody warned me that when you fall in love, you really fall in love forever.” Junot Diaz


End file.
